


only forever | derek hale

by lxcky13



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-06
Updated: 2019-04-27
Packaged: 2019-05-03 00:46:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 51
Words: 150,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14557203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lxcky13/pseuds/lxcky13
Summary: the town that giselle stilinski thought she knew like the back of her hand is turned upside down when she gets attacked by an inexplicable creature. slowly, she learns the ropes of the supernatural side of beacon hills with help from her best friend, scott mccall, her brother, stiles stilinski, and the alpha, derek hale. as she uncovers more about the supernatural, she uncovers more about herself, and the brooding alpha that saved her life.*order of events in the story don't follow the same order of events in the show*





	1. Chapter 1

“I’ll be fine, Melissa,” I promised the curly haired, scrub wearing woman as I was exiting the hospital that evening. “Besides, it’s a full house tonight and they need all hands on deck.”  
“Okay,” Melissa sighed reluctantly, “but if you ever need a ride home in the future, don’t hesitate to ask, okay?” she placed her hand on my arm.  


“I won’t,” I smiled at her.  


Melissa was being called over by Nurse Terry to attend to a patient who had just been wheeled in from the car accident that was keeping everyone occupied. “Give me a call when you get home, okay!?” Melissa called as ran off.  


“I will!” I called before exiting the busy and bustling hospital. Melissa McCall was like a second mother to me. She stepped in when my own died and considering I was left with my brother and father, I would need someone to explain things that would cause my father to stutter, flush, and stumble over his words, which I had to admit was quite a sight to see as I was used to him being calm, cool, and collected sheriff of this town. Melissa didn’t have any daughters, only one son - Scott, who was one of my closest friends.  


A cool breeze crept its way through the seams of my shirt. I pulled my jacket tighter around myself and clutched onto the strap of my bag as I kept walking. Beacon Hills was a small town - not so small that everyone knew each other, but small enough for everything to be in walking distance. As I got further away from the hospital, that meant the amount of light coming from the cars on the street, the local shops, and street lights around me became sparse along with the teenagers, children, and their parents that inhabited them. I approached the deserted industrial area alone and I couldn’t help but feel uneasy and I found myself clinging onto my jacket with the intentions of stopping the shake in my hands. I cautiously looked around my surroundings to see if there was anyone nearby but I was alone as far as I knew. _Calm down Giselle_ , I thought to myself, _just because it’s dark doesn’t automatically mean you’re going to be attacked._ Just as I began to believe myself, I heard something behind me. I spun around as fast as I could to at least catch a glimpse at whatever was behind me but I found darkness to surround me. Cursing myself for always taking the late shifts at the hospital, I continued to squint against the darkness, hoping to catch whoever it was before they caught me.  


The cement was shaped to form arches for people to pass under, but it was wide enough for someone to hide behind. I peeked through the openings, but when I saw nothing, I slowly approached the arches, trying to crane my neck as much as I could to observe as much as I could from my moderately safe distance. Before I concluded that I didn’t have any indication that I was being followed, I heard the slightest scrape against the concrete opposite of where I was looking that I probably wouldn’t have noticed if I wasn’t paying attention.  


“Hello!” I called. Another scrape. “I can hear you,” I added, trying to have an air of confidence to my voice. This time, I didn’t hear anything. Considering I was in the most vulnerable position right now - being all alone, away from help, all in the darkness - I could be the perfect target for _whoever_ was waiting for me. Maybe I was overreacting. It could’ve just been a squirrel that got scared by my voice and ran off and being all alone at night was making me think something more than what it really was. _All right, let’s get out of here before something_ really _gets me._  


As I turned back to the trail, a scream escaped my lips when I was face to face with a lizard - person - thing. Green scales covered the entirety of it as it stared at me with yellow slitted eyes as its tail waved to me. It stood on its hind legs, slightly towering over me. I fell to the ground in my attempts to scramble away from it., but its clawed hand reached out and wrapped around my neck effectively ceasing any other attempts of escape I had in mind. While it looked slimy, it had a firm grip on my neck which caused my supply of oxygen to become scarce immediately which didn’t help the fact that my heart was beating erratically and my natural instinct was to hyperventilate.  


My bag fell to the ground as I pulled and clawed at the lizard’s arm. While passing out was not a bridge I had even come close to crossing, I was launched backwards and gasped for air only for it to be knocked out of me when I slammed into the ground - my head and back taking most of the blow. I didn’t get the chance to process my suffering because the lizard walked over to me, ready to strike again. _This wasn’t real. This couldn’t be happening._ My head throbbed agonizingly as my eyes pooled with tears from the pain. My breathing became laboured and I couldn’t stop the erratic shaking that the fear introduced to my body.  


Right before my eyes, the lizard was tackled from the side and I took this opportunity to crawl clumsily behind the pillar right behind me. I peeked out to see who the hell was brave enough to spark a fight with this…thing. Should I try to escape and take the chance that this person had offered me? My bag was right in the middle of this fight and I didn’t consider leaving it behind an option.  


I watched as the two finished their tumble and took their stances to challenge each other, I made out the physique that was familiar to me, but only vaguely. The muscular build, the perfectly tousled, dark hair, and the signature leather jacket. As the man and lizard charged at each other, I got a better look at his chiseled cheekbones, prominent jawline, and the six o’clock black shadow that paired well with his equally dark brows and attributed them to Derek Hale.  


I recognized him from only seeing him around my brother, Stiles and Scott. He was older than us, his family died in a fire a few years ago and when he returned to Beacon Hills last year. The boys had become friends with him. When I asked how the two of them became friends with someone older than us, I was met with the vague answer of, “mutual friends.” While I had spoken to Derek once or twice when he showed up to the house looking for Stiles, we weren’t friends. But he didn’t look like anything I remembered. I’m sure I’d remember him having red eyes and fangs.  


_This wasn’t real. This couldn’t be happening._ When I pressed my back against the pillar, I felt a tingling feeling spreading all over my body as I lost all feeling in my body from the neck down. I tried to move my hand but I found that I couldn’t. I couldn’t move my body at all. I was completely paralyzed from the neck down. Could it have been the hit to the back of my head? Or maybe the shock? Or maybe both?  


Derek sent the lizard flying into the pillar neighbouring mine before approaching it to land a punch on the thing only for it to move away. This sent Derek’s fist into the pillar, smashing it into pieces. The close proximity I had had to him confirmed that I wasn’t hallucinating or seeing things. It was only for a second but I mentally noted that Derek did have red eyes and fangs.  


With all the strength I had, I tried to move myself closer to the edge to get some context as to what was going on but my sudden paralysis made it impossible. I couldn’t see anything anyways and not knowing what was happening was unsettling enough. I let out a slow breaths and I shut my eyes to calm myself down. Logic was failing me in this situation and if I didn’t have that to rely on in this situation, I might as well not even try to calm down. I had to be dreaming or hallucinating. I slid down to the ground and placed my head in between my legs. There was no way that this was a real thing that I just saw with my own eyes. It didn’t make sense. Not at all.  
I jerked my head up when a light hand touched my shoulder. It was quiet now. I saw Derek standing in front of me and holding my bag out to me. He knelt down and examined my form when I didn’t reach out for it.  


“You can’t move, can you?” he simply asked and I shook my head.  


Suddenly, the headlights of a car appeared from behind us and illuminated Derek’s face, showing off his green - almost grey - eyes before I heard a round of gunshots being fired. Ducking my head and hiding further into the pillar, I felt Derek put my arm around his neck and hoist me up. While the gesture was highly unexpected, considering our barely-even-there acquaintanceship and Stiles’s comments about Derek’s sour attitude, there was nothing I could do at this point except for hope that he didn’t find this as awkward as I did. I heard a thud on the ground before the gunfire ceased. Silence took the place of violent gun shots.  


“It’s okay!” A vaguely familiar voice called. _Mr. Argent_. “I got it.” Allison’s dad had been the one to kill the lizard - probably without even flinching.  
_Was this a normal occurrence for everyone here?_ Just as I was about to respond, Derek’s head whipped to me and he shook his head, signalling for me to be silent. Maybe Mr. Argent’s comment wasn’t for us and to someone else in the car that he came in.  


The shadow casted on the ground showed me an outline of Mr. Argent, then a figure appearing from behind him. I then heard a slam and a groan from Mr. Argent right behind us. I glanced up above us and saw no sign of the lizard, but by Mr. Argent’s groans, I think it was alive and well. I then turned my head to Derek for some context but he just kept his head turned to his left shoulder, trying to listen in, then straining his neck to look past the pillar when everything fell silent.  


Before I knew what was happening, I was being pulled into Derek’s arms who was running the opposite way of the scene. “Hey! We have to go back for Mr. Argent!” I told him. “That thing’s going to kill him!” My pleas were met by silence from Derek.  


Soon after, Derek slowed to a stop in front of a black car. At this area, I could hear the familiar sound of cars passing the road and saw the lights lining it. I craned my head as far out as it would go to look past Derek’s broad shoulder to see that the scene was long gone, almost as if it wasn’t happening. “We have to go back - he saved our lives!” I continued. “Are you crazy!?” I yelled despite the proximity of our faces.  


“He’s going to be fine!” Derek finally spoke.  


“How do you know!?” I challenged.  


“Argent’s never alone.”  


“What does that mean?” I widened my eyes at him but I didn’t wait for an answer. “W-we have to go back.”  


“What are you going to do, hm?” Derek asked. “What’s your plan? Because you can’t do much like this.” When I stayed silent, Derek walked to the passenger side of his car and opened the door. I cocked a brow at him, remembering how little I knew this guy. Derek sighed. “I’m going to take you home,” he told me nicely.  


“You’re sure he’s not alone?” I whispered.  


“I saw his father get out of the car - he wasn’t talking to us. He doesn’t even know we were there.”  


I looked back again as I was hesitant. I definitely didn’t feel like waking up tomorrow morning to a news report saying Mr. Argent died and I could’ve helped.  


“Fine,” I muttered as I realized that I didn’t have much of a choice considering my current state. “But if he winds up dying, I’m selling you out.”  


Derek breathed a short laugh. “I wouldn’t expect any less.”  


As we sped away, the car was silent. I had tried to wrap my head around everything I had witnessed that night. A lizard that was a head taller than me attacked me only for Derek Hale to save me from it with his red eyes and fangs. How the hell was I going to explain this to my dad, Stiles, Scott? I wasn’t even entirely sure _what_ I saw. This thing that I could barely even describe almost killed me. The thought sent my heartbeat into an irregular rhythm against my contracting chest.  


“Is it wearing off?” Derek spoke before I began to hyperventilate.  


“Yeah, I can move my toes.” My out-of-breath response elicited a nod from Derek. “What was that thing?” I asked before thinking of a better question. “And what was Mr. Argent doing there? 

Was there a reason we were hiding from one of my friend’s parents?” The most pressing question of all found its way through the crowd of all the seemingly minuscule details. “What are you? Your eyes were red.”  


“It was probably just a trick of the light.”  


My eyes narrowed at the man. “There were no lights,” I deadpanned.  


I caught the flash of annoyance on his face before he replaced it with a more neutral expression. “Are you all right?” he glanced to me but I found myself gazing out of the window, panic riddling me at the thought of it finding me to finish the job that it couldn’t tonight. Derek turned onto my street and I looked back to him to check him over for any cuts or bruises but he looked fine.  


“Are you going to tell me anything about what just happened?” I asked when we sat in my driveway.  


“Talk to Stiles, Giselle,” Derek instructed.  


“ _Stiles_ ,” I chuckled doubtfully. “Stiles knows about this?” I smirked, finding it amusing that Derek thought he could lie to me about this, but Derek remained neutral. “Okay,” I breathed, placing my hand on my bag. I was starting to regain feeling all over my body although a pins and needles feeling remained in place of the paralysis which I assumed was going to be temporary. “Some lizard man - one you and Mr. Argent fought off, by the way - was going to kill me tonight, and you expect my brother - who doesn’t usually have a clue about anything - to have a clue about this?” I spat. Derek’s silent nod only stirred up more anger in me as he seemed to be desensitized to the trauma that came with almost dying. “Fine,” I sighed.  
I got out of the car and just as I was about to shut the door of the car, I realized where I was and how I had gotten here. I wouldn’t even be alive if it wasn’t for Derek. Considering the lizard paralyzed me, I didn’t stand a chance. Even if it didn’t paralyze me I still wouldn’t have stood a chance. Knowing that I had to do the right thing, I bent down to look at Derek who quirked a brow at me as his left arm extended across to the steering wheel. “Thank you,” I said shyly, as I could only imagine the deer-in-headlights look I had on my face.  


His brow relaxed on his tanned face as he offered me a small smile that pushed his beard-clad cheeks up the slightest bit. After watching his head nod in acknowledgement, I figured that was the only kind of response I would get to my gratitude, so I shut the door and hastily made my way into my house, my weak legs moving as fast as they could. I pulled my keys out of my pocket, almost dropping them onto the pavement in the process. I thanked the universe that I didn’t - seeing as how I already found myself making a horrible first impression on Derek.  


With speed I didn’t know I had, I locked every door in my house in fear that the lizard would come for me again. When I got upstairs, I passed by Stiles’s room and stopped. My twin brother, Scott and I used to be close, but something changed earlier this year and all conversations we would share turned into just conversations with Scott and Stiles had as they chose to stop talking whenever I came around. When I tried to tag along with them after school, they told me I couldn’t come but never gave me a reason as to why. Maybe this was the reason for all of this.  
_Talk to Stiles, Giselle_.  


Hesitantly, I pushed open Stiles’s door and stepped in. It looked normal - band posters, textbooks and his laptop on his desk, clothes thrown around the room, and no Stiles. He had been staying out exceptionally late recently, but I never questioned it because I knew he would never give me an answer. I contemplated whether I should be going through Stiles’s things because it was an invasion of privacy. But he’s my twin and I was attacked by something and I deserve to know what it was. If Stiles knows the answers like Derek says he does, then this is where I need to look. He won’t even know.  


Venturing further in, t-shirts and flannels were strewn across the floor, a clutter of papers on his dresser, his desk, and even on his bed. When I got to his desk, I reached out to lift the hardcover of the first book I saw. It had a deep red cover with no title on the front although there was some gold font adorning the spine of it. As quickly as I lifted the cover, it fell as I was startled by my phone ringing. I pulled it out of the pocket it sat in in my bag and realized Melissa was calling. I took deep breaths to quiet the sound of my heart thudding in my ears as I tried to figure out an explanation as to why I hadn’t called her.  


“Hi Melissa,” I answered as normally as I could.  


“Hey, I was just checking that you made it home safe - you didn’t call me,” Melissa’s concerned voice sent a strike of guilt to my heart. I didn’t like worrying her, but it’s not like I was in a position to be able to call her.  


“Yeah, I’m sorry, I just forgot.”  


“You forgot?”  


“I did, I’m really sorry - I’m just so forgetful,” I tried to laugh it off, but my voice came off weak.  


“Are you all right?”  


“Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?”  


“I-I don’t know, you just seem a little…off.”  


“I’m fine - pretty tired actually, I was just going to sleep,” I winced at my lie.  


With a hesitant “okay”, Melissa let me go and I put my phone on the desk next to me as I looked to the book I was about to open before she called.  


Stiles had more books than I thought considering his lack of attention due to his ADHD, I didn’t think he would be able to stay focused long enough to not only read these books, but to highlight passages and make notes on them. These passages all related back to lycanthropy and I found them immediately useless, relating them back to an online game he probably played that dealt with these creatures. I hadn’t found anything about the lizard which made me feel more guilt. I figured that if I looked through Stiles’s things and found something, it would be worth it and justifiable, but snooping and finding nothing made me not only feel worse, but made all of this pointless.  


The creaking of the stairs pulled me out of my thoughts and I sprung out of Stiles’s computer chair as I grabbed my bag and cell phone off of the desk only to clumsily pull papers along with it. I groaned as I quickly bent down to place them back on his desk, but stopped short only to see an illustration of the lizard.


	2. Chapter 2

There it was. As I stood up from the floor, I found the eyes, the scales, and the claws. All the things that I had the unfortunate opportunity to become up close and personal with. Recurring images of what I faced only half an hour ago played in my mind. Although I was perfectly still, breathing was getting harder to do. This thing paralyzed me and left me helpless. I could’ve died tonight. I stared it in the face and I was closer than I ever wanted to be to it. The strength it had was one like no other. It wasn’t human that’s for sure. So what the hell was it?  
“Giselle, what the hell are you doing!?”  
The voice belonged to Stiles but I couldn’t move, even though I knew he was not pleased with me finding out about this. He had ripped the paper out of my hand which caused me to flinch at the sudden, immediate contact. I stood rigidly beside his desk, and although I was facing them, I couldn’t process anything other than the fact that Derek was right. Stiles knew what this was.  
“Giselle, what’s wrong?”  
Scott’s softer voice did nothing to pull me out of my trance even though it belonged to my best friend. All I saw was the lizard. His touch brought me back to reality, replacing yellow eyes that sat on top of scales with deep, brown eyes amidst sun kissed skin. The concern was evident in his eyes and tone. I was safe now. Only for now. My eyes flickered to Stiles who was showing a mix of concern and worry. I didn’t know how to feel. How did my brother know about something like this? If he did, why didn’t he tell me about it? I couldn’t help but feel angry that he didn’t tell me any of this. My eyes found the paper that he snatched out of my hand.  
“What the hell is that?” my voice was only a whisper.  
Scott removed his hands from my face and turned to Stiles who stood behind him. “It’s a video game thing--”  
“Tell me the truth, Stiles,” I demanded. He wasn’t going to lie to me. Not this time. “Because I was just attacked by this thing-” this information sent the boys to approach me in concern but I held up a hand to stop them and took a step back from them, bumping into the bedpost behind me in the process. If they knew what this thing was, does that mean _they_ were something? “-Derek Hale fought it off - with red glowing eyes and fangs might I add -“ I let out a humourless chuckle. “-so I am _so_ not in the mood to hear _anything_ other than the truth right now.” The boys gave each other an uneasy look. “Is this why you guys won’t talk to me anymore?” my voice was weak as I took in just how much their sudden absence from my life had affected me. It was an odd period in my life. One day, I had my best friend and my brother by my side 24/7 like the three musketeers, but the next day they were cutting off their conversations whenever I’d come around, they wouldn’t let me hang out with them anymore, and they didn’t seem to bother with me anymore. For the most part, I thought I did something wrong. I remember spending nights trying to figure out what it was. When I confronted Stiles about it, he just shrugged it off and attributed their sudden change in behaviour to their sudden desire to “become men”.  
“It’s called the kanima,” Scott hesitated. “It’s what’s been causing all the murders lately.”  
“What is a kanima?” I folded my arms before I took a seat onto Stiles’s bed.  
Scott sat next to me as Stiles sat in his computer chair across from me, eyeing him warily. “It’s a shapeshifter,” Scott answered.  
“It paralyzed me - I don’t know how but it did.”  
“It has a paralytic toxin in its claws,” he told me hesitantly.  
I nodded. That added up, one moment the thing had its clawed hand around my neck and the next, I was paralyzed. I looked to Stiles. “What else?”  
“When it’s not the kanima…” he sighed heavily. “…it’s Jackson.”  
“Jackson Whittemore?” I repeated with wide eyes. “Self-entitled, top of the line asshole Jackson is going around killing people?” I questioned and the boys only nodded, seemingly not believing it themselves either. “This is fantastic,” I muttered in a sarcastic manner.  
Jackson was your typical high school jock, designer clothes, light brown hair sculpted to perfection, and a muscular build that came from being the captain of every sports team. He was dating the hottest girl in school - which in our case was Lydia Martin - and cutting the heads off of everyone to feel taller. I guess he was doing the latter quite literally now.  
“We’ve been trying to stop him-”  
“You guys?” I scoffed at Scott. “Have you seen this thing? I don’t even know how Derek held it off as long as he did.” Images of Derek’s red eyes flashed through my mind. I just now took in the incessant growling that came from him and the seething that came from the kanima. “He smashed a cement pillar to pieces…” I mused, realizing the severity and reality of that sentence. I looked to Scott. “What… _is_ Derek?” The question didn’t roll off the tongue.  
“You know,” Stiles let a smile stretch across his face. “It’s getting pretty late,” he sat up in his seat. “Maybe it’s time for sleep-”  
“Stiles,” I warned, sending him a look that could kill. I’ve gotten this much out of them and I wasn’t going to stop until I had the full story.  
“Stiles,” Scott spoke softly. “She should know now.” The tone in his voice gave away that even he was hesitant about what he was about to say next. Scott turned to me, not being able to meet my eyes. “He’s a werewolf.”  
“An Alpha actually,” Stiles chimed in, throwing his hands up for a moment as he realized that tonight was going to be the night I finally got the truth. “After killing his uncle - who he thought was comatose from the fire but was actually the one killing people earlier this year - Derek became the Alpha… the Alpha that bit Jackson.”  
“ _Bit_ …” I breathed a laugh and shook my head as I stood up, getting frustrated again at the discrepancy between logic and experience. Logic told me these things didn’t exist but what I saw and experienced told me the polar opposite. “If Derek bit Jackson, isn’t he supposed to turn into a werewolf? I mean, that’s how it works, doesn’t it?”  
“That was the plan, but Jackson’s emotional issues got in the way of that, so…” Stiles trailed off.  
“The shape he took reflect that,” Scott added. “He can only become a werewolf when he resolves those issues.”  
“Okay, so let me get this right,” I sat down. “Jackson is a giant lizard that is supposed to turn into a wolf once he sorts his issues out and you’re planning to stop him from killing people?” Scott and Stiles nodded. “Do you know how strong this thing is?” I asked Scott before turning to my significantly weaker brother. “Do _you_ know how strong this is?”  
“Scott’s not as weak as you think,” Stiles informed me.  
I cautiously turned to the boy next to me. “What does he mean?” my voice was small. I almost didn’t know if I wanted to know the answer.  
Slowly, Scott shut his eyes and when he opened them, amber eyes replaced his brown ones and he let his mouth part slightly to show me four, long, sharp fangs. Instinctively, I gasped and flinched back, but soon I gaped in amazement as I took it all in. “You’re like Derek,” I whispered, enticed by watching his features return to normal.  
I turned to Stiles, waiting on him to do the same only to be met with his look of realization of what I was silently asking of him. “Oh no!” Stiles shook his head. “I’m still as weak as you think.”  
I looked to Scott, leaving my brother to second guess his choice of words on his own. “Derek bit you too then?”  
“No, it was Derek’s uncle, Peter.”  
“And Mr. Argent?” I asked. “He showed up to try and stop it too,” I remembered.  
“He’s a supernatural hunter,” Stiles answered. “His whole family actually - for decades.”  
“Even Allison?” I looked to Scott who was dating Allison. Scott nodded glumly and I was starting to piece together why the two had staged a break up and why there was a sudden infiltration of Allison’s family in the school with her grandfather becoming the acting principal and her mother substituting for various teachers. “So she knows about you?”  
“They all do,” Scott answered. “Chris, Mrs. Argent, Allison, Gerard - her grandfather,” the last part was added in upon my confused expression as I didn’t know Allison’s grandfather by name. “Allison’s on our side.”  
Our side meant that there was another side. Scott told me that they were trying to save Jackson, which told me that the other side was probably the bad one. If we were trying to save Jackson, maybe Allison’s family was trying to kill him so he couldn’t hurt anyone else. My head spun a little bit at all the seemingly make-belief information that I had received tonight. Jackson was a giant lizard man who transformed at night after a long day at school, and my best friend and Derek are both werewolves who are trying to stop this thing, while my brother tries to get as much information on the kanima as possible to try and stop him. “So does everyone know about these things? Because it seems like they do.”  
“Not everyone,” Scott answered. “And we’re trying to keep it like that.”  
After I promised Scott and Stiles that I wouldn’t say anything, Stiles took the opportunity to check in on me and make sure that I was okay.  
“Are you sure it’s Jackson?” I asked.  
“Positive, why?” Stiles asked.  
“Why would he attack me? I’ve never spoken a word to him before.”  
Stiles proceeded to tell me that legend says that the kanima only goes after murderers, but Jackson’s recent interest in not only myself, but Scott, Stiles, and Derek contradicts all of that for a reason that is still unknown.  
“I want to help,” I decided.  
As if it were rehearsed, the boys stood up while repeatedly sputtering the word “no” while both wearing wide eyes and shaking their heads furiously.  
“It’s too dangerous,” Stiles declared.  
“You’re helping, aren’t you?” I retaliated which left Stiles at a loss of a comeback. “Look, this thing came after me to kill me and it didn't do it, so it could come back any time to finish the job.” They stayed silent, sneaking a glance to each other, quietly prompting the other to respond to my comment. Considering they didn’t know what to say, I knew I made a valid point.  
“If that’s true and you try to help in stopping him, you’ll be easily accessible and an easy target,” Scott replied with a tone that mimicked a parent explaining right from wrong to their children.  
“Not if I’m just doing research on what this thing can do.”  
Scott sat next to me again. “You’ll be safer if you stay out of the way and let us handle it.”  
“This isn’t our first rodeo,” Stiles announced, smirking when I looked to him.  
“What am I supposed to do then?” I asked. “Just wait?”  
“Let us handle it,” my friend told me.  
Defeatedly, I sighed and allowed them to win this one.  
“Giselle,” Stiles concluded, “you can’t tell dad, because he doesn’t know.”  
“But-”  
“Giselle!” we heard from downstairs. _Speak of the devil_.  
“What am I supposed to say?” I asked in a panic.  
“Anything other than what really happened,” Stiles answered.  
“Only if he asks,” Scott added.  
My dad entered the room, his forehead crinkling and accentuating the wrinkles that could only come from raising two kids on your own. His Sheriff badge shone proudly as it sat on his uniform. His furrowed, blonde brows stood out against his darker skin and was a sharp contrast to the brown hair and fair skin Stiles and I had.  
“What happened?” he approached me and placed his hand on my upper arms.  
I glanced to Stiles and Scott, cursing the parental telepathy my father didn’t lack. “What are you talking about?”  
“I got a call from Melissa - she was worried about you.”  
“So you came rushing home?”  
“You know what’s been happening around the area with all the murders…” _You have no idea_. “…I just got worried.” My dad pulled me into a hug and he placed a hand on the back of my head which caused me to wince at the tenderness of my head but I wiped the pain off of my face when he pulled back, thankful that he was starting to drop it and I wouldn’t have to lie to my father.  
“I’m okay, dad,” I promised as I reached up and placed my hand on his that was resting on my arm. I didn’t notice the shake in my hand until it was too late and I mentally cursed myself out.  
My dad’s soft expression turned stone cold again. “What happened?”  
“Nothing, it-it was just a run in with some low-life, that’s all,” I shrugged.  
“Was it Matt?” my dad’s tone was deadly.  
“No dad, I would’ve told you if it was.”  
He whipped around to Scott and Stiles. “Were you two there?”  
“No,” Stiles shook his head. “She was just telling us about it now.”  
My dad turned to me as his blue eyes showed me how much worry he had building up inside of him. So I responded as nonchalantly as possible, “The guy just pushed me around a little bit and then left me alone,” I told him.  
“I want a description.”  
I couldn’t help but roll my eyes whenever dad went into sheriff mode. “Dad-“  
“No Giselle,” he raised his hand that fell to his side. “I want-“ he stopped short as his eyes glued to his hand. I followed a gaze and noticed his hand had blood on it. At first, I didn’t know where it came from, then it dawned on me that that was the hand he placed on the back of my head when we hugged. My dad seemed to piece it together as well when he placed his other hand to the back of my head and when he pulled it back, his once clean fingertips were covered in blood. I got so caught up in finding out that Stiles knew about all of this and learning about all of this myself that I didn’t realize the blood that stained the back of my head.  
All three pairs of eyes looked to me with eyes that illustrated the hurt they felt at the knowledge of my injury. The knowledge of it made me sick - not because there was blood, but because it validated the fact that the kanima was real, it attacked me, and it only left me wondering when it would come back to finish the job. “He-he pushed me down, okay?” I muttered as my eyes filled with tears. “He called me a bitch, pushed me down, and left.” I looked to my father who seemed like he was going to explode if he didn’t let out his aggression in the next second. “That’s everything, I swear.”  
When my dad asked again for a description, I brushed it off and told him it was too dark to see anything. He left after he made sure I wasn’t concussed and assigned Stiles to drive me to and from the hospital from now on and forbid me from leaving to go anywhere alone. Scott and Stiles asked to know the whole story and I recounted it as best as I could. Once I did, Scott left and it was just me and Stiles.  
“You need to stay away from Derek,” Stiles warned me and my brows furrowed. “He’s trying to kill Jackson - we’re trying to save him.”  
“How do you save _that_?”  
“I don’t know,” my brother sat back in his chair again. “But Scott doesn’t kill people.”

The next morning, after being asked for a description again by my dad, I went to school with Stiles in the jeep that used to belong to our mom. Every time I see it, I always remember the fight I had with Stiles when dad said he could have it. He argued that was justified to seeing as how he had his licence and I didn’t. I was mad at him for almost a whole week - giving him the silent treatment and letting a petty remark slip here and there when I just couldn’t handle it anymore.  
Once we got to Beacon Hills High, Stiles and I headed straight to our locker. The hallway was filled with all kinds of students - freshmen to seniors. I had waved to the small handful of friends that I passed before we got to our locker. The inside of our door had photos of both of us, along with ones where Scott made an appearance. _Mischief_ and _Beneficence_ was written in black sharpie on the door as well. Mischief was Stiles’s nickname considering he couldn’t say his real name properly when he was younger. Mieczyslaw doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue and the furthest we could get to saying his name when we were younger was Mischief. While I thought it was clever, Stiles felt like I wore out the nickname but I was a fan. In turn, to annoy me as siblings do, Stiles went to our mom to ask what the opposite of mischief was and the best she could come up with was beneficence which Stiles shortened to Benny. While the nicknames carried on as we got older, they had come to a stop when Scott and Stiles were dealing with Scott’s sudden transformation. I was hoping that since I was in the know, we could get back to that.  
“I gotta get to class,” Stiles broke me out of my thoughts as he pulled his backpack on.  
“Okay, I’ll see you later,” I promised before he made his way down the hall.  
As my eyes scoped out the hallway, I noticed Jackson and my heart thudded in my chest. I gripped tightly onto my locker the second he looked to me and was walking in my direction. _Is he going to do something? Here? In front of all these people?_ Jackson’s blue eyes stayed glued to mine but his eyebrows crinkling together showed he was confused as to why I was staring at him. He had a chiseled facial structure and dirty blonde, almost brown hair that was spiked up. When he passed by me and kept on his way, I let out the breath I had been holding in and put my head against my locker door that I still held tightly. _Pull it together Stilinski_.  
“Hey,” a calm voice startled me and when I looked to who it was I saw none other than Matt Daehler. He stood as tall as me without his spiked hair adding half an inch to his height, and stared at me with small blue eyes that seemed to be lacking something, and a pointed chin beneath his nervous smile. “Clamp down any harder and you’ll break the door,” he chuckled at his own joke.  
I immediately removed my hand from the locker and sent him a small smile that became tedious after four years.  
Matt was the guy who just didn’t understand the word “no”. There wasn’t a month that had gone by where he didn’t ask me on a date. It started in the seventh grade and no matter how gently or how harshly I let him down, he didn’t let up. It started off innocent, but the more times he tried, the more desperate he became, he would all but beg me to go on a date with him. No matter how many times Scott and Stiles told him to back off, he persisted whenever they weren’t around.  
Telling Matt I’d see him later, I shut my locker and headed in the opposite direction. I didn’t get far due to his grip on my arm, prompting me to wait. Instantaneously, I ripped his hand off of my arm as flashbacks of last night occurred to me as they had all night. The tight grip, while this time was located on my arm, couldn’t help but remind me of the deceptively tight grip the kanima got me in despite its slimy look. The bell rang which sent me back to reality and I felt someone behind me. I glanced over my shoulder to see Scott staring at a confused Matt menacingly as he wrapped his arm around my frame.  
“I’m sorry, you just scared me,” was the last thing I told Matt before Scott whisked me away.

For the rest of the day, I didn’t see Jackson, Scott, Stiles, or even Allison. Stiles gave me a brief explanation, telling me that he, Scott, and Allison were going to try and get Jackson to realize what he was doing. When he became the kanima, he wouldn’t remember what he did. With Jackson out of the way, I felt at ease knowing he wouldn’t be around to hurt me, but that ease was quickly counteracted when I realized that he could easily hurt my friends. I had hoped Stiles was going to be back in time to give me a ride to the hospital, but when the clock struck 3:30 and Stiles was nowhere to be found, I decided to start making my way to the hospital on foot. It was broad daylight in the middle of the day, I don’t think Jackson would attack me now.  
“Heading home?” I heard beside me amongst the crowd of students rushing to get home.  
I looked to my left to see Derek’s car parked next to me. I bent down to look in through the open window to see him wearing a leather jacket with a black shirt underneath. His green eyes were covered by sunglasses - a new look for him. I grew hesitant as I remembered Stiles’s warning last night. Derek couldn’t be a bad person for wanting the kanima dead - I wanted the same thing too up to a point. Besides, it’s not like he would kill me. But if Derek was willing to kill the kanima knowing he’d be killing a teenager at the same time, what kind of person did that make him? What kind of person did that make me?  
“Hospital actually,” I replied.  
“Need a ride?”  
I glanced to my watch, knowing I wouldn’t make it in time - a consequence I was willing to deal with when I had no other option, but now that I had this option, I figured it was best to be punctual, especially since I had just gotten my placement at the hospital. “Only if it’s not a bother.”  
“Of course not.”  
“Giselle, wait up!” I knew that voice all too well. If there was any doubt left in my body, it vanished at the sound of Matt calling to me. I climbed into Derek’s car and he only stared at me as Matt kept calling.  
“Just drive,” I breathed a laugh to try and hide how embarrassed I was. “Please.”  
Without question, Derek revved the engine before speeding away leaving Matt in the dust. As we got further away, I felt the tense in my chest ease. “Friend of yours?” Derek smirked.  
“Just a guy who doesn’t know how to take “no” as an answer,” I corrected before I fell silent.  
When we slowed before a red light, I looked to Derek. He was the definition of tall, dark, and handsome. His skin had been acquainted with the sun and complemented by his swooped black hair, dark beard, and eyebrows that worked to chisel his face even further than it already was. Although I couldn’t see them now, I was starting to realize how well these factors worked together to accentuate the colour of Derek’s eyes.  
“I talked to Stiles and Scott,” I told him.  
“Good,” Derek nodded.  
“They told me everything about Jackson, Scott…you.” I began to get nervous. “They told me you wanted to kill Jackson.”  
Derek turned his head to me and gave me a hesitant look. “That’s true,” he confirmed. “You can’t save something like this.”  
“Stiles said he can’t become a werewolf unless he resolves his emotional turmoil.”  
“He’s got a lot of it, so it doesn’t sound plausible.”  
“I can’t argue with that,” I chuckled and Derek smirked as well, his eyes still focused on the road. “But don’t you think it’s worth a try?” I pressed softly when my laughter died down but Derek stayed quiet. “He’s a teenage boy - you can’t possibly kill him unless you tried every possible thing to save him first.”  
The rest of the ride was silent except for the hum of the car and with every small movement I made, it seemed as though all of the sounds I made were amplified. I couldn’t help but feel awkward about the overwhelming silence between us. I tried to find something to say to him, to try and make conversation but every time I tried, I came up with nothing. When we arrived at 3:45, I decided to start heading in despite the fact that I had 15 minutes left to spare. As I picked up my school bag from my lap, Derek took his time to speak, “What are you doing here anyways?”  
“I’m a volunteer,” I answered. Derek gave me a look that told me he didn’t believe that a high school student volunteered at a hospital. “It’s not like I operate. I just do coffee and dinner runs - carry a few boxes here and there and lend a hand wherever I can.”  
“Why?”  
“It looks good on university applications.”  
“You want to be a doctor?”  
“A surgeon.”  
When silence answered, I decided to go. With a thank you and goodbye, I got out of Derek’s car. I couldn’t help but find a huge discrepancy between Stiles’s view of Derek and Derek’s true character. The Derek that Stiles tried to depict to me wouldn’t seem like the type of guy to give me a ride. It was when I stepped onto the first step that a thought occurred to me. Why did Derek show up to school in the first place? I turned around to ask him but when I scoped out the parking lot I saw blue cars, green cars, red cars, but no black ones.  
That night, I got a ride with Melissa to the police station upon my dad calling to tell me Stiles and Scott had landed themselves a restraining order by Jackson’s father. They had locked up Jackson in a prison transport van to try and explain what he was doing as the kanima. Jackson managed to break out and get to the police station to tell his father what had happened. Upon our arrival, Melissa and I found Jackson sitting a fair distance away from the room the deputy was leading us to. Scott and Stiles sat at a table side by side as my father and Jackson’s father stood on opposite ends of it. As Melissa and I stood in the doorway, my dad read off all the terms to the restraining order and after Stiles just _had_ to make a horribly timed joke, the meeting came to an end and the date the restraining order was to come into effect was announced.  
“So Jackson didn’t believe you guys, huh?” I asked Scott and Stiles after they’d been chewed out by their respective parents.  
“Not even a little bit,” Stiles pursed his lips.  
“No idea,” Scott shook his head.  
“Why don’t you ask Lydia to talk to him? She is his girlfriend after all,” I suggested.  
“Nah, Jackson thinks her immunity rubbed off on him which is delaying the process of him becoming a werewolf,” Stiles shot the idea down. He explained that at the homecoming dance, Lydia had been attacked and bitten by Peter, but she didn’t turn and she didn’t die from it which was concluded by everyone that she was somehow immune to it all.  
“What about his parents?” Scott suggested. “He’s adopted, so maybe he just has to resolve things with his biological parents.”  
“That wouldn’t be so hard if anyone had any clue as to where they are,” Stiles replied.  
“Killing him doesn’t look like such a bad option,” I suggested. Although I wasn’t serious, the idea of saving Jackson was becoming tedious.  
When Scott was called by his mom to the parking lot, Stiles and I were left to watch, from afar, Mr. Whittemore berate our father about Stiles’s mockery of the restraining order and seemingly, the whole situation.

When we got home, Stiles and I tried to work out ways to resolve Jackson’s emotional issues that stemmed from his past. Jackson had a plethora of issues that he didn’t seem open to talking about. It was my theory that his parents’ death caused him to be the jerk he is and if this was true, it didn’t seem like he would be willing to talk about this with just anybody. That fact alone made the task of resolving these issues seemingly impossible. “Do you think dad would know anything about Jackson’s parents?” I asked.  
“Probably not. Even if he did, I don’t think he’d be willing to hand over the information.”  
“Do you think the Argents know anything?”  
“We know more than they do,” Stiles tossed an article he printed out onto his desk. “They don’t even know it’s Jackson.”  
“Jackson doesn’t even know he’s doing it,” I shook my head. “I saw him in the hallway this morning and he didn’t look like he knew about anything.”  
“He doesn’t remember anything when he’s the kanima - it’s like he shuts off and the kanima takes over.”  
“No wonder he didn’t believe you guys,” I said. “He needs proof.”  
“He tried that already. Jackson set up a camera in his room on the last full moon to try and see himself turn into a werewolf, but the whole part of him turning into the kanima wasn’t there.” I furrowed my eyebrows in response. He continued, “It must have got deleted or edited. Danny and Matt exported the video and they noticed there was a cut.”  
“He couldn’t have done that in his kanima state,” I shook my head.  
“No, but here…” Stiles turned to his computer and pulled up an E-Book in Latin. On the side a note was made. “‘The kanima seeks a friend.’” he read as he highlighted the words then he turned to me. “Whoever deleted that footage is protecting him - they don’t want him to know what he is.”  
“Why would someone want to protect Jackson from that?”  
“Probably the crushing truth that he’s not the werewolf he wants to be.”  
“I don’t think it’s that,” I shook my head. “That just doesn’t sound right.”  
“Do you have any suggestions?” While I hated to admit it, I didn’t and we were stuck at a dead end.


	3. Chapter 3

My brother was good for a lot of things like making me laugh, trying to protect me despite all his fragility, and driving me to and from school and the hospital. However, when it came to timing, Stiles was the absolute worst at it. Of all the days he could get detention, he chose to do it on one of the days where I wasn’t expected at the hospital. In his defence though, if he did this on a day where I _did_ have to be at the hospital it would have resulted in me sprinting to the hospital, so I guess this wasn’t as bad as I thought. But I still wanted to go home.  
The door to the entrance of the school opened and I sprung up from my seat on the step. Mr. Harris passed me, glazed look and all. “Mr. Harris,” I called. He was the chemistry teacher that everyone loved to hate. He was lanky, with perfectly parted and gelled hair. His baggy eyes sat behind glasses as he dressed usually in a casual dress shirt and pants.  
“Miss Stilinski,” Mr. Harris responded when he turned to me.  
“I was just wondering if detention was over,” I asked only to be met with a blank stare. “Because I’m just waiting for my brother.”  
“It’s not over yet,” he replied before turning and beginning to leave again. I stopped him, asking him why he was leaving if detention was still happening. “ _I’m_ going home,” he told me with a snarky tone. “But your brother and friends are going to be restocking the library.” And with that, Mr. Harris left the school and got into his car with my glare following him.  
I debated on whether or not I should sneak into detention, but I decided against it since Allison’s grandpa had equipped the school with an abundance of security cameras. Allison attributed it to the fact that Gerard had eyes everywhere and Beacon Hills High was no exception. This fact couldn’t help but worry me, considering Scott was a werewolf, I knew that Gerard and Allison’s mother were keeping a special eye out on the cameras for him.   
It wasn’t long after when the front doors burst open again with Stiles and Scott who were carrying Erica Reyes who was having a seizure. The blonde haired, brown-eyed girl had a stunning transformation overnight - trading in her frizzy hair, acne, and sweats for perfect curls, skin tight clothes, and a complexion to die for. But she looked unrecognizable now. “Giselle, come on!” Stiles called as the two headed to the jeep.  
“What happened?” I raced behind them.  
“Jackson shifted and destroyed the library.” Scott sat in the back with Erica in his lap. “He paralyzed Matt and Erica - I think it caused her to have the seizure.”  
So Erica knew about this. Does that mean she’s a werewolf? It would explain her sudden transformation. Erica wasn’t supposed to be seizing which considering getting the bite got rid of any medical problems you seemed to have.  
When Stiles sped past the hospital, I questioned him. “We have to take her to Derek,” he told me from the front seat. We drove in a frantic silence, only taking when we finally stopped in front of a building that Derek was at. He was already outside and waiting for us. When he got Erica in his arms, he led us to the basement of the building and laid her down, instructing Stiles to support Erica’s upper half.  
“Is she dying?” Scott asked.  
“I-I don’t know - maybe,” Derek replied as he rolled up the leather jacket’s sleeve up Erica’s arm.  
“Maybe!?” I repeated but it was drowned out by Erica’s window shattering scream.  
“You broke her arm!?” Stiles exclaimed.  
“It triggers the healing process.” Then, I watched as blood poured out of Erica’s arm where Derek sunk his claws into which earned more screams from the blonde. Derek explained that it was necessary to get the kanima’s venom out of her system. But Erica became weak and dependant on my brother to not fall against the floor. Scott, Derek, and I decided to give them some time alone as we stepped away from them.  
“Jackson’s parents were murdered,” Scott spoke. “His real parents. Erica told us they were in a car accident and dead on arrival. Police speculated that it might have been a murder.”  
“How is Jackson here then?” I asked.  
“His mom was pregnant with him - they had to do an emergency C-Section on him,” Scott answered. “There was a couple in the woods, in a trailer. Jackson killed the husband but he couldn’t kill the wife because she was pregnant. He couldn’t finish the job because…”  
“Because his mom died the same way,” Derek finished.  
“So that must mean something, right?” I glanced between the two. “If Jackson was the kanima and couldn’t kill the wife because his mom died the same way then that means there’s still some part of Jackson that’s there, even when he’s the kanima.” I looked to Derek. “Which means he can still be saved.”  
“That part could be shut out,” Scott speculated. “Allison got Lydia to translate the Latin - the kanima doesn’t seek a friend, it seeks a master.”  
“Someone’s controlling him,” Derek mused.  
“I’ll help you stop him,” Scott told the Alpha. “As part of your pack.” Derek straightened up at this suggestion. “On one condition, we save him. And we do it my way.”  
Derek’s distaste to this idea was written all over his face, but he knew that he needed Scott’s help - all of us needed each other to stop Jackson.  
Once Erica woke up, she was considerably weak, which Derek confirmed would be resolved with enough sleep, but other than that, she was okay. Remembering the fact that she had a seizure, had her arm broken, and had some blood drained from her arm only made the healing abilities of werewolves much more fascinating to me. Stiles, Scott, and I were on our way out as I reflected on the new light I saw Derek in. I had seen Alpha Derek before, but only the dangerous, ass-kicking, hostile Alpha, but this was different. I saw the Alpha Derek who was worried about his beta and who was desperate to save her life, almost like a parent, which I guess was the equivalent relationship to an Alpha and his beta. Again, I couldn’t help but wonder where Stiles got the idea that Derek was a bad guy. When we got outside of the building with Derek close behind us, I stopped as Scott and Stiles kept walking. The Derek that Stiles described seemed like the kind of guy who would’ve driven me into the woods to kill me instead of the hospital that day. I turned to Derek who was already looking at me with a quirked brow.  
“Yesterday, why did you come to the school?” I looked up to him. It was a question I had been wrestling with myself about. On the one hand, I thought it was to check on Jackson, but soon another part of me ran wild with the idea that he had come to check on me. Once I asked the question, I couldn’t help but regret it a little bit. Even though I was beginning to think something of it, I didn’t want him to think that I had some stupid school girl crush on him.  
“Isaac told me that Jackson was missing and I wanted to see if he showed up again,” Derek answered.  
“That makes perfect sense,” I laughed out nervously. And it did. Considering the lack of communication between Scott and Derek, it made sense that Derek wouldn’t know about Scott’s plan and want to check things out for himself and where else would he check on Jackson than at school?  
“I also wanted to see if you were okay,” Derek added.  
My nervous fidgeting stopped in an instant. “Well, that’s really nice of you,” I spoke softly, trying to be as normal as possible and for the first time, I saw a genuine smile from Derek. “I’ve never seen you do that before,” I commented with a smirk. “Smile like that,” I clarified after he shot me a questioning look. “It’s nice,” I added without thinking.  
“Giselle!” Stiles called and I couldn’t help but silently commend his impeccable timing. “Let’s go!”  
“I’ll see you later,” I told Derek, looking at him through my lashes. “It’s _nice_?” I muttered to myself as I was halfway to the jeep.

That evening, Stiles, dad, and I took a bite of our burgers as we gathered for our weekly family dinner in dad’s office.  
“Oh, what the hell is this?” dad groaned with a mouthful of his burger.  
“Veggie burger,” Stiles answered as he continued to pull out his food from the bag.  
Dad scoffed as he flipped open the flimsy box, expecting fries but getting celery and carrot sticks instead. “You let him do this to me?” he asked me.  
“It’s not my fault,” I put my hands up defensively with a smile. “It was his turn to pick up the food.”  
“You’re trying to kill me,” dad accused Stiles as I pushed my fries closer to him.  
“I’m trying to extend your life, okay?” he defended himself. “Now, tell us what you found!”  
It wasn’t long until Stiles began to interrogate dad about the new information he found and it wasn’t long until I joined in, pointing out the bulletin board plastered with pictures and notes behind him. He continued to protest but we didn’t listen so he eventually caved. “Fine, I found something,” throwing his nibbled on burger on the plate in front of him. He crossed his arms and looked at us with a sigh. “The mechanic and the couple all had something in common.” Stiles told me the kanima had murdered a mechanic right in front of him when he went to go get his car fixed. The kanima had paralyzed him, so he wasn’t able to help. “They were all 24. The mechanic, the husband, and the wife,” dad counted them off on his fingers. “You know what I say about threes,” he began. “One’s an incident…”  
“…two’s a coincidence…” Stiles carried on.  
“…three’s a pattern,” I finished.  
All three of us sprung up to get a closer look at the board. “Lahey wasn’t 24 when he died which made me think it either wasn’t connected or the ages were just a coincidence, until I found this,” dad turned to his desk. Mr. Lahey - Isaac Lahey’s dad had been one of the kanima’s first victims. Dad handed us a red folder. When Stiles opened it, the words _DIED IN COMBAT_ were printed in red across the page. When I saw the file belonged to Campbell Lahey - Isaac’s older brother - we pieced together that if he were still alive today, he would be 24. This led to us speculating that they were all in the same class - the 2006 graduating class to be exact. As we scanned through folders, we noted that all of the people who were murdered - minus Mr. Lahey - were all in Mr. Harris’s 2006 chemistry class, which ultimately made him a suspect.  
Stiles and I decided to head home a few hours later leaving our dad behind, but stopped short when we both got a text from Scott. _Animal clinic in 5?_ it read.  
“What’s at the animal clinic?” I asked Stiles.  
“Deaton knows all about the supernatural,” he started the car. Deaton was Scott’s boss at the animal clinic. He was a well put together man - so put together that it was almost intimidating. “He knew before Scott told him. He knows a lot more than he lets on.”  
“I want to go. If Deaton knows a lot, I want to know a lot about the kanima too.”  
Reluctantly, Stiles dropped me off at the clinic as he decided to call it a night, figuring he could catch up on what he missed through both me and Scott. I didn’t push him.  
When I got out of the jeep, Derek and Isaac were just getting out of Derek’s car. Our greetings were brief due to our level of familiarity and because Scott opened the door of the clinic immediately upon seeing us. After establishing their distrust for each other, Derek put an end to Scott and Isaac’s disagreement. “Where’s the vet? Is he going to help us, or not?”  
“That depends,” we heard a smooth voice before us. I saw Dr. Deaton standing against the doorframe leading to the back of the clinic. He wore a dark blue polo with a pair of jeans - a simple but classy look. A look that, in a way, seemed to define Deaton. “Jackson; are we planning to kill him, or save him?”  
“Save him,” Scott answered while Derek answered the opposite.  
I looked up to Derek. “Save him,” I demanded. When he paused, he stared at me for a moment too long before he sighed and broke eye contact with me: I knew I won.  
“Save him,” Scott confirmed watching us.  
“Miss Stilinski,” Deaton called on me. “Glad to have you.”  
His comment made me smile, silently letting him know that I appreciated someone letting me be useful somewhere in the middle of all of this.

“So,” Isaac leaned onto the metal table of the operating room as Deaton stood on the opposite side of the table and sorted through different jars of seemingly similar powders - the symbols on the jars told me they were all different. “What are you? Some kind of witch?”  
Deaton paused to look to the curly haired teen. “No. I’m a veterinarian.” Deaton put the jar he was examining down with the rest in the rack. “Unfortunately, I don’t see anything here that’s going to be a defence to a paralytic toxin.”  
“We’re open to suggestions,” Derek replied.  
“What about an effective offence?” Isaac offered.  
“We’ve tried,” Derek shot the idea down. “I almost took its head off.”  
“And Mr. Argent had to have used an entire clip on it,” I added as I clasped my shaky hands together. “But it just got back up.”  
When Deaton asked for a possible weakness of the kanima, Derek supplied the information that it was afraid of water. When Derek and Stiles came face to face with it at the school, they stayed in the pool, but despite the kanima being reptilian, it didn’t dare step into the water. Despite this fact, Jackson was the captain of the swim team at school making his fear of water virtually impossible. “You’re trying to catch two people,” Deaton began before turning to the counter behind him for a moment. He turned to us while holding a medallion. “A puppet and a puppeteer.” He put the medallion onto the table before he continued, “one killed the husband but the other killed the wife, do we know why?”  
“I don’t think Jackson could do it,” Scott said. “His mother died pregnant too and there was the possibility that she was murdered. He couldn’t let that happen.”  
“How do you know it’s not part of the rules?” Isaac refuted, referring to the rules of being a shapeshifter.  
“The kanima kills murderers. If Jackson kills the wife, the baby dies too.”  
“Does that mean your father was a murderer?”  
Isaac paused for a moment, seriously reflecting on his late, abusive father. “Wouldn’t surprise me if he was.”  
“Whether or not he was, the kanima still attacked Giselle,” Derek pointed out, causing everyone to turn to me.  
“I’ve never killed anyone,” I announced. “Maybe I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”  
“No, it was following you for a while. It even hid outside of the hospital until you came out.”  
“Wait a minute,” Deaton cut in. “The book says they’re bonded, right?” Deaton asked Derek who nodded in response. He was referring to the beastiary, a book that held information about all known supernatural creatures. “What if the fear of water isn’t coming from Jackson, but from the one who’s controlling him?” he opened one of the jars and began to surround the medallion with the powder. “What if, something that effects the kanima also affects its master?”  
“Meaning it’s a weakness for both of them,” I replied.  
“Making it easier to catch them,” Scott continued, “both of them.”  
“So do we just set up a place for Jackson to be and hope whoever’s controlling him is there?” I asked.  
“I don’t think we have to,” Scott turned to me. “Jackson was talking about how he got a ticket to the rave this week in the locker room and maybe if he got one, so did the person controlling him.”  
The rave wasn’t until the end of the week and it was only Tuesday. “So we just wait until then?”  
“I’m afraid it looks like it,” Deaton replied which sent a wave of unease to wash over me, but Scott placed a comforting hand on my back which helped intercept the fear I was feeling. “We’ll figure out the details soon, until then I think you should all go home and get some rest.”  
Without another word, all of us left the animal clinic and just as I was about to give Stiles a call, Derek stopped me, offering me a ride which I accepted. I hopped in the backseat of his car, but Issac insisted on letting me take the front seat. When he dropped Isaac off at their shared loft, Derek looked to me, hand still on the steering wheel.  
“Will you be all right?” he asked me almost apprehensively.  
I was shocked by his question. We didn’t know each other that well and I didn’t expect him to care about that, since I was just someone who was in the way of him catching the kanima. “I-I think so.” I winced as the stutter in my voice gave away the anxiety I was really feeling after hearing that I had to sit around and wait until the night of the rave.  
“There’s a high chance it’s going to come find you before the week is over.”  
“Yeah, I’m aware of that,” I exhaled heavily.  
“That means I would know where it is.” I looked to Derek, silently questioning him with furrowed eyebrows. “If it’s going to come for you, it’ll come to your house. If it comes tonight I’ll be able to catch it - maybe stop it somehow.”  
“What are you suggesting?”  
“A stake out at your house. I could wait outside your house and keep an eye out for it.”  
The offer didn’t have any downfalls. Sure I’d have to sneak Derek into the house, but how hard could it be? My dad wouldn’t be home and Stiles usually stayed in his room. I would get protection from the kanima tonight and maybe Derek would be able to stop it. “Let’s go,” I decided.  
Ultimately, Derek and I decided to walk to my house. Since my dad wasn’t home yet, I don’t think he’d take too kindly to Derek’s car being in his parking space and he certainly wouldn’t take too kindly to Derek being in my room late at night. Derek parked it at the end of the street, resulting in a mildly awkward walk to the front door. As I turned the key, I prepared myself for Stiles’s dismay once he saw Derek. Once we were both in, I led Derek up the stairs to my room. Doing this felt almost taboo; I knew nothing even remotely physical was going to happen considering Derek wouldn’t even be staying in my room, but as we got closer to my room, I found myself hoping I hadn't left any clothes lying around on the floor and if it looked presentable enough. I kept my head forward, not daring to make any eye contact with Derek as my knees had a hard time keeping still. It seemed as though I was continuously making a bad impression on Derek - almost dying, being chased out of school by Matt. I didn’t need a messy room to validate the bad impression even more. The plan was Derek was going to sit outside my window on the roof because we figured it wouldn’t just walk through the front door.  
Just as I thought we were in the clear, Stiles’s door opened just as we were about to pass it.  
“Giselle-” he popped out in front of me with a smile but stopped in an instant when he saw Derek. He looked over his shoulder to see the direction we were headed in and once he realized my room was behind him, he spun to us so quickly I got whiplash just watching it. “No way in _hell_ ,” he enunciated the words, furiously shaking his head as his face began to get red with anger. “Why don’t you take your little werewolf ass down those stairs and out of this house?”  
“Stiles, it’s not what you think,” I tried to interject.  
“I think it’s exactly what I think!”  
“Jackson is still out there and if he really intended to kill Giselle, he’ll probably come here for her,” Derek tried his luck from behind me. “I’ll be able to stop him from hurting her if that’s what he’s planning to do. Stiles, I’m protecting your sister from possibly dying.” I have to admit, that was a good tactic.  
“Is that the only protection you’ll be providing tonight, hm?” Stiles’s eyes squinted at Derek as he placed his hands on his hips.  
“Stiles,” I winced, feeling mortified.  
“Why don’t you just ask Scott?” my brother looked to me.  
“He’s not strong enough to fight Jackson if he does come,” I replied. “Derek’s an Alpha which means he’s stronger.” Stiles sighed with an eye roll. “Please Stiles.”  
After glancing between Derek and I, he stubbornly moved to the side with pursed lips and let us pass.  
I opened the door to my room, feeling relieved that everything was as it should be, papers neatly lined up on my desk alongside my laptop, my bed perfectly made - not a single crease in the white comforter, the few posters I had up on my walls were straightened to perfection. I let out a quiet breath of relief, thanking the universe that a positive reflection of me was finally shown to Derek. I turned to Derek just in time to see him stumble over a shoe that always had to poke out from its position from beside my door. I caught him by his arm and steadied him. I apologized as I lined it up in its proper position, cursing the shoe for once again ruining the perfect ambience of my room as it has done multiple times in the past.  
“My dad’s going to be home in a few minutes. When he’s pulled in and inside you can sit outside the window,” I instructed as I pulled my pyjamas out of my dresser and when I turned to Derek, he stood awkwardly in the middle of my room, sort of sticking out like a sore thumb. His black clothes contrasted sharply against the lighter shades of purple and gold that accentuated my room. “You can sit inside until then,” I offered with a chuckle.  
Giving me a smirk, he did as he was invited to before I went to the bathroom to change. I got to my room just in time to hear my dad pull into the driveway. I ushered Derek out onto the roof when I heard the front door close downstairs.  
A knock on my door made me glance to the window to make sure Derek was well hidden before I invited my father in.  
“You’re still up?” he asked when he peeked his head through my bedroom door.  
“Yeah, I was just going to go to sleep,” I smiled as best as I could, trying to hide my nervousness that stemmed from the possibility of my father finding out that Derek was right outside my window and the fact that Derek was outside my window.  
“Are you feeling all right?” his brows pulled together in confusion.   
“Yeah, why?” I asked almost a little too quickly.  
“Your window’s open,” he pointed towards it.  
I looked over my shoulder towards the window that Derek thankfully wasn’t seen in. “Yeah, it was just a little warm in here,” I lied which was a lot easier than I thought it would be.  
“Make sure you close it before you go to sleep,” he said, placing his hand on the doorknob. I nodded in response and once we said goodnight, I let out the breath I had been holding in. Lying to my father wasn’t a good feeling, but I was impressed with how easily I did it. The ease of it all made me believe that this plan could actually work. Besides, what was one night of Derek sitting outside my window? He wasn’t exactly keen on conversation, so it would almost be like he wasn’t here.  
Now that he mentioned it, I couldn’t help but agree. I opened my closet in search of an extra blanket as I sang along softly to the song playing from my laptop. It was a habit I had a hard time pushing down but it calmed the last few bits of fear still present.  
“Can you stop that?” Derek spoke. I turned to see him poking his head through the window. “It’s distracting.”  
“You heard that?” I raised my brows before it dawned on me. “Right,” I turned to my closet again. “Super hearing.”  
Finding the blanket I was in search of, I approached the window and I saw Derek sitting closer to the edge of the roof now. When I climbed through the window I debated on how to give him the blanket. Would it be weird to offer it to him? It was a way of saying thanks. Would he flat out say no? He wouldn’t be afraid to. Do werewolves have superheat like Jacob in _Twilight_ does? Derek has done so many things for me, the blanket would be a starting point of paying him back for everything he’s done. Besides, he’s shown no signs of disliking me, so what did I have to be afraid of?  
“What is it?” Derek asked me as he continued to scan the neighbourhood.  
“What?” I snapped out of my thoughts.  
“You reek of anxiety.” _I reek of anxiety?_  
“I just…” I slowly approached him. “…here,” I held out the plaid blanket when I was close enough causing him to turn to me. “I know there’s a million places you’d probably rather be,” I began when he didn’t take my offer. “And it’s pretty cold tonight and I know you have to sit out here the whole night and I just wanted to make it easier,” I rambled and I found myself sat next to him.  
“It’s okay,” Derek sent me a small smile. “I’ll be all right.”  
His response left me wondering where to go from here. This blanket was a small way of thanking for him for not only tonight but saving me before. “I know I’ve said it so much these past few days but thank you,” I set the blanket down and looked out to the neighbourhood. “For everything - the life-saving, the drive to the hospital, tonight,” I turned to Derek to see him already looking at me. “I owe you one,” I smiled.  
He let out a chuckle at my remark. “I just want to catch this thing.”  
My eyes left Derek’s and found a sudden interest in the tiles on the roof, not wanting him to see how scared I really was. “I want you to catch it too,” I replied as scary thoughts of the kanima coming back to kill me flooded my mind. I couldn’t stand to live another day in fear and I knew that Derek wouldn’t be able to sit outside of my window every night to act as my guard dog, so I was virtually helpless. Helpless was a feeling I hated more than fear.  
“I will.” Derek’s tone was determined which gave me a sense of protection, one that seemed impenetrable. One that made me appreciate Derek’s help even more and made me believe that if he was around, the kanima wouldn’t be able to hurt me.  
I looked to him and couldn’t help but smile in appreciation. “I should head back inside and get some sleep.” Following the nod of Derek’s head, I stood and took the blanket in my hands. “Goodnight…?” the wish came out as more of a question because I had never said it to him.  
“Goodnight Giselle,” he replied after smirking at my poor attempt at saying goodnight.  
When I got into my bedroom, I was about to shut the window, but I glanced down at the blanket and decided to leave it next to the window, just in case Derek found a use for it later on. 

The next morning, I woke up to my alarm. A moment passed before I remembered Derek. I looked out the window, but didn’t see him anywhere. I felt myself begin to panic as I got out of bed. Had the kanima taken him? Did he leave some time in the middle of the night and just not come back? Did my dad see him and send him off and I had an awkward conversation waiting for me downstairs? I threw my window open. “Der--” I began to call but stopped short when I noticed a figure next to the window. It was Derek. He sat against the wall next to my window, sleeping soundly, and wrapped up in the blanket I had left outside. The sight caused me to smirk, finding the idea of the big, bad, brooding werewolf wrapped up in a warm blanket and sleeping soundly almost contradictory. _I guess only the werewolves in Forks have superheat._


	4. Chapter 4

The car ride to school that morning was spent catching Stiles up on what he missed at the animal clinic. I also included that the kanima hadn’t made an appearance near the house, so the rave was our best chance at finding Jackson and whoever was controlling him. After being interrogated by my brother about what exactly Derek and I got up to last night and him not believing the truth I provided him with, Scott decided to draw our attention back to the the rave, Jackson, and whoever was controlling him. “There’s gotta be some other way to get tickets, right?” he continued our conversation when we all got out of the jeep in the parking lot.  
Tickets to the rave sold out quick, but while Jackson and whoever was controlling him got tickets, neither of us had any which made getting into the rave harder than we originally thought. If they got tickets, there had to be someone there that was a target for Jackson and the person controlling him.  
“It’s a secret show and there’s only one way to get tickets and it’s a secret,” Stiles replied as we made our way towards the entrance of the school.  
“Hey,” someone called behind us. We turned to see Matt and instinctively, the boys created a shield in front of me. Matt proceeded to ask how no one got suspended for the destruction of the library yesterday in detention. While Stiles chose to respond with hostility towards Matt - probably because of the stress of the situation and his natural brotherly instincts kicking in - Scott ensured he was okay. Through their conversation, Matt never acknowledged me, which was odd. While it was a slight relief, I did find it suspicious that he was desperate to ask me out on a date a few days ago and now he was pretending that I didn’t exist.  
“So, you didn’t get tickets last night either?” Matt said to the boys. When Scott shook his head, Matt told them about a pair he was able to buy online and advised them to stay optimistic.  
“I don’t like him,” Stiles concluded once Matt had walked away. “Are you sure about this?” he asked our friend.  
“Last time, whoever’s controlling Jackson _had_ to kill somebody because he didn’t finish the job. So what do you think he’s going to do this time?”  
“Be there to make sure it happens,” Stiles replied reluctantly, knowing Scott was right.  
I couldn’t help but feel the urge to glance over my shoulder. I scanned the parking lot, specifically for Jackson. I didn’t find him anywhere, but I did see Matt staring at me from the side entrance of the school. Usually when he found me staring, he would turn away immediately. Not this time. His stone cold glare almost forced me to turn away from him and catch up with Scott and Stiles.

“So the kanima _is_ being controlled by someone,” I clarified with Allison in the hallway that afternoon.  
“Yeah, the guidance counsellor - Ms. Morrell - she said it meant friend at first but even she admitted that she wasn’t great with Archaic Latin.” We walked down the hall, heading to lunch. “Lydia translated it all effortlessly.”  
“Lydia knows Archaic Latin?” I quizzed.  
“She got bored with regular Latin,” Allison’s slender shoulder shrugged, moving some of her long wavy hair wit hit.  
“Hey Allison!” we heard a call down the hallway. The hazel-eyed girl stopped and I followed her lead. When I saw Matt, I couldn’t stop my hands from tightening on my binder. “Are we still on for tonight?”  
I cocked a brow to Allison who gave me a quick smile before looking to Matt. “Uh yeah,” she scratched the back of her neck, realizing how awkward her position was in all of this.  
“Awesome!” Matt beamed. “I can’t wait!” And with that he left, but not before giving me a smug smirk.  
“I have _so_ many questions,” I looked to her as we continued on our way.  
“It happened by mistake,” she sighed. “He was talking, I was focused on Jackson and-and the next thing I know we’re going to the rave together.”  
“And Scott…?”  
“He thinks it’s a good idea. It’ll really sell the idea that he and I are broken up to my parents.”  
“Just…” I glanced back behind me. “…be careful.”  
“Of course,” Allison nodded once we entered the cafeteria.

After school, Stiles, Scott, and I headed to Deaton’s to review the plan for tonight. Since this was my first time really helping the boys, I wanted to make sure I could do everything to help and prove to them that I could be useful for more than just sitting around. I felt a slight pressure that came from tonight because of this, but I tried to clear my head of that, knowing that this pressure could result in mistakes that could be fatal.  
“Ketamine?” Scott mused as Deaton slid a small bottle of the drug and a syringe across the table to him.  
“It’s what we use on the dogs, but in a higher dosage. If you get this into Jackson’s system, it’ll low him down and buy you some time.”  
Deaton held up a jar of the powder he had used the night before to in his demonstration of catching the kanima and whoever was controlling him. “This is just some of what you’ll use to create the barrier around the club,” Deaton said to Stiles and I. “This part is only for you two.”  
“That sounds like a lot of pressure,” Stiles told him as I picked up the jar off of the table to inspect the powder. It looked like black sand. “Could we find a less pressure filled task for me?” my brother continued.  
“What is it?” I glanced to Deaton.  
“Mountain ash from the mountain ash tree. Many cultures believe it protects against the supernatural. This whole building is lined with ash wood, making it hard for someone like Scott to cause me trouble.”  
“So we spread this around the perimeter of the building and Jackson and whoever’s controlling him can’t pass it?” Stiles asked.  
“They’ll be trapped.”  
“Doesn’t sound too hard,” I shrugged.  
“There’s a little more to it,” Deaton stopped me in my tracks. “Think of it like gun powder. It’s just powder until a spark ignites it.”  
“If you mean set myself on fire, I don’t think I’m okay with that,” Stiles just _had_ to say.  
Using a different analogy, Deaton explained golfers that visualized where they wanted the ball to go before taking their shot. This tactic made them more successful and these golfers turned out to be the best. And while I was confident in our plan, Stiles didn’t seem to feel the same way. We both had to be on board with this plan because if we weren’t able to complete the barrier, then we could kiss our chances of catching Jackson and his master goodbye.  
“If this is going to work Stiles, you have to believe it,” the veterinarian advised and Stiles forced his demeanour to change.

The jeep hummed as Stiles drove us to Scott’s place that evening. That was the only sound that was heard. There was no music, no talking, and definitely no laughter. The air was melancholy and slightly awkward, because Stiles and I were never this quiet.   
“You did what you did with good intentions,” I spoke softly, but Stiles didn’t reply as he kept his eyes trained on the road. “He’s going to get his job back - dad’s the best sheriff this town has ever seen.”  
On our way out the door, we ran into dad who was missing his badge and gun. He had disclosed that he had been fired due to Stiles’s invasion of police records when trying to figure out the culprits behind the previous supernatural attacks. The restraining order served to Stiles and Scott by one of the most powerful lawyers in the town wasn’t exactly winning him any points either. Dad was upset, but he didn’t yell which I think was worse.  
We picked up Scott, we only muttered a half-hearted hello and proceeded to drive in silence.Upon our arrival at the rave, Scott questioned us about our silence, but we decided to keep it to ourselves. The second we finished unloading the car, Scott took off in a panic without telling us what was happening.  
“We’ll start here, go in opposite directions and meet up in the back,” Stiles decided as he handed me a large black trash bag filled with mountain ash.  
We stood back to back, each with a bag full of mountain ash. “See you on the other side,” I told him before tearing a hole in the bottom of my bag and walking off in the other direction and creating distance between my brother and I.  
When I got halfway to lining the building with mountain ash, I heard gunfire in the distance. Considering Jackson was here, there was no question that the Argents had shown up to kill him and they had probably just run into Derek and Boyd - his beta - who were trying to stop them while his other two betas - Isaac and Erica - were in the rave trying to paralyze Jackson.  
I felt a sense of relief the moment I saw Stiles heading my way as he continued to spill mountain ash over the ground. “Hey!” he called once he saw me. “How much do you have? I’m starting to run low!”  
I gathered the last bit of the mountain ash in the palm of my hand. “About a handful!” I replied as I held my fist up only to see him doing the same thing. “Please don’t tell me that’s your way of telling me how much mountain ash you have left.”  
“What are we supposed to do!?” Stiles paced in his spot as I examined the considerable distance between us that would take about 40 handfuls.  
“I don’t know but we have to do something!” I watched Stiles dig into his pocket. “What are you doing?”  
“I’m calling Scott!” he replied before pressing the phone to his ear.  
“How’s he going to help? He can’t even touch this stuff!”  
Looking to my empty trash bag and the considerable distance between Stiles and I, I couldn’t help but feel defeated. This was the first mission I had come along on and I couldn’t even successfully complete it. There was no way we were going to accomplish this without getting more mountain ash. Calling Deaton was out of the question considering neither of us had his number so we were left to fend for ourselves.  
 _I learned that the best golfers never swing before first imagining where they want the ball to go. They see it in their mind and their mind takes over._  
“Believe,” the word left my lips. I scrambled to look at Stiles as he shoved his phone back in his pocket. “Stiles!” I called. “You have to believe!”  
“Giselle, what the hell are you talking about? It’s impossible - we’ll never be able to do this.”  
“You have to see it in your head!”  
“Giselle-“  
“We can do this!”  
“How-“  
“Mischief!” I called defiantly and this gave me his undivided attention. “We can do this,” I enunciated each word.  
“Together,” he replied, completing our childhood mantra.  
Shutting my eyes to help me visualize better, I cautiously began to walk forward towards Stiles. I created a small opening at the bottom of my fist to let the powder fall to the ground. After a few seconds, I bumped into something and when I opened my eyes, I saw Stiles in front of me. I looked to the ground to see we completed the barrier.  
“Benny, we did it,” Stiles muttered in disbelief.  
I looked to him with a grin. “Together.”  
Stiles began to cheer and jump around and I couldn’t help but join him. Once our celebration was over, Stiles headed into the rave to check on Isaac, Erica, and Jackson while I stayed in the jeep since I didn’t have a ticket. While Isaac was able to use his werewolf strength to beat up two of the lacrosse team members in the locker room a few days ago to steal their tickets, there unfortunately wasn’t a third ticket holder that would supply _me_ a ticket. I soon saw a familiar figure jogging towards the entrance of the club and I recognized it was Derek. I got out of the jeep and headed over to him.  
“Where is everyone?” he looked to the entrance.  
“Stiles went in to check on Erica and Isaac who I’m hoping are with Jackson.”  
“Scott?” he looked to me.  
“He hasn’t been answering his phone,” I replied worriedly.  
“They left you alone?”  
“I don’t have a ticket, besides, I was waiting to see if whoever’s controlling Jackson left early - they would’ve been trapped,” I gestured to the handy work Stiles and I had completed on the ground.  
Stiles filtered himself out of the crowd of dispersing people when the event ended. “So, uh, we kind of lost Jackson in there,” he told us.  
“What!?” I whipped around to face him.  
The three of us noted Erica and Isaac’s inability to pass the barrier Stiles and I created and this revelation made Stiles cheer. “Oh my God, it’s working!” he chanted. “We did something!” he announced to Derek while grinning at me and shaking my shoulder excitedly.  
As I pushed him off of me, I heard a powerful howl coming from somewhere in the club. “What was that?” I looked up at Derek. “Scott,” he told me as he continued scoping out the entrance of the club and the amount of people exiting becoming sparse. He turned to Stiles. “Break it.”  
“What!? No!” my brother protested.  
“Scott’s dying!”  
As they continued their banter, I bent down and brushed away some of the powder, creating an opening. I threw my head over my shoulder. “Derek!” I called over their voices and they turned to me. “Go!” That’s all it took for Derek to rush into the club.  
While we didn’t know Jackson’s whereabouts and breaking the seal is possibly putting everyone - myself included - in danger of Jackson and his master, Scott was dying and that was the only thing I could be sure about. I trusted Derek to save Scott. When Derek retrieved Scott, we rushed to Deaton’s who had a remedy. Scott had been held hostage by Mrs. Argent who kept him in a room full of wolfsbane. After we helped Scott onto the table in the back of the animal clinic, Stiles went home to try and work things out with dad.  
I noticed a bullet hole in Derek’s forearm. “Why aren’t you healing?” I asked him.  
He glanced to his arm. “It’s a silver bullet, it’s going to take longer to heal.”  
I saw the bullet was still lodged into his arm. “Maybe it’ll heal quicker if you pull it out,” I remarked with a smirk.  
“I’ve got some rubbing alcohol, tweezers, and gauze over there,” Deaton nodded his bald head towards a drawer as he placed the liquid remedy into Scott’s mouth.  
Once I retrieved the items I needed, I disinfected Derek’s arm as he sat on a chair before me. I couldn’t help but feel a little nervous. I had never had to take a bullet out of someone’s arm before and I didn’t want to mess it up. I grasped the tweezers tightly in my hand and let out a slow breath to calm my nerves.  
“There’s nothing to be worried about,” Derek spoke softly. “I heal quickly. There’s nothing you can do to mess this up. You’ll pull the bullet out and it’ll heal - slower than usual, but still quick.”  
I smiled up at him for his endearing words. I looked to his wound and held his forearm as I placed each side of the tweezer around the bullet and slowly dislodged it from his arm. I put it on the counter and while I waited to see his wound heal, it did nothing. “Nothing’s happening,” I looked up to Derek.  
“Hmm…” Deaton hummed as he looked over to Derek’s arm. “…perhaps it was laced with wolfsbane.”  
“So, you’ll just need some of those drops-“ I pointed to the ones in Deaton’s hand. “-and you’ll be okay,” I looked to Derek.  
“Not exactly,” Deaton replied. “Scott inhaled the wolfsbane, but Derek was shot by it. There’s two different protocols.”  
“Okay…” I hummed. “What’s the protocol for Derek?”  
“Burning it out,” Derek answered.  
“I’ve got a blowtorch,” Deaton offered.  
While I expected him to take the reins for this one, Deaton instructed me on how to do it and I did it - hesitantly - but I did it. I taped the gauze down around Derek’s wound and looked up to his tired eyes that never left me. While I burned out the wolfsbane, he did his best to constrain his movements that illustrated just how painful it was. “Is that okay?” I asked him softly as I finished taping the gauze and he nodded lazily. We were alone now as Deaton left Scott to rest and he went to check on the animals.  
“You’re good at this,” he spoke.  
“I’ve watched Melissa do it before,” I replied as I put the stuff back. “The pulling things out and patching up the wounds - I mean,” I said when I returned to kneel before him again. “Not the burning things out,” I chuckled and he smiled sleepily. “I used to patch up Stiles a lot when we were younger. He was a lot more reckless as a kid, if you can believe it,” I shook my head as I laughed and Derek joined me in it.  
“I bit her,” he whispered once our laughter died down.  
My brows pulled together as I leaned closer to Derek. “Who?”  
“Argent,” he answered. “I went into the room and the wolfsbane almost knocked me out too. Then I felt her attacking me and I had to fight back to get Scott out. She had be backed against a corner and it just…happened.”  
Since Derek was an Alpha, he had a power that betas and omegas lacked. He had the ability to turn people. If the bite didn’t kill the person, it turned them. “Well, what happens to a hunter when they’re bit by a werewolf?”  
“I don’t know,” Derek shook his head. “But it can’t be good.”

When Scott had recovered, the both of us found ourselves with Derek - whose wound had healed as quick as it usually did once I patched him up - in the basement of his apartment complex. His wound had healed as quick as it usually did and he was as good as new. Since tonight had gone disastrously, the idea of saving Jackson seemed like a far fetched one. The ketamine only worked for a few minutes but after that, we lost him. Considering everyone left the club without being stopped by the mountain ash barrier, it was safe to say that whoever’s controlling Jackson isn’t supernatural.  
“We can’t save Jackson,” Scott muttered in defeat.  
“We can’t seem to kill him either,” Derek replied. “I’ve seen a lot of things, but nothing like this,” he shook his head. This statement surprised me considering Derek was a born werewolf. “Every full moon’s just going to make him stronger.”  
“Why aren’t we letting the Argents handle this?” I asked. “I mean Gerard does have the beastiary full of information on this thing and they come from a long line of hunters, so surely he’ll know how to stop Jackson.”  
“They’re trying to kill Jackson. We have to save him,” Scott told me.  
“I’m the one who turned him anyways,” Derek added. “It’s my fault.”  
“You didn’t turn him into _this_ , - it happened because of something in his past,” Scott refuted.  
“And if we can find a way to fix that somehow, he’ll become a werewolf,” I added.  
“It’s a legend in a book; it’s not that simple.”  
My phone rang as I was about to respond. I excused myself and created some distance between myself and the boys as I saw who was calling. _Allison_. She had her date with Matt tonight and her calling me sent me into a frenzy of worry. Had he done something to her? Did he say something about me to her? Threaten her in some way?  
“Allison?” I spoke into the receiver.  
“Giselle, listen,” she began. “Matt has photos of you on his camera.”  
“Huh?” my face contorted to display my confusion to no one in particular.  
“I dropped him off at his house and he left his camera in my car,” Allison spoke quickly, probably out of panic. “I looked through and-and there were normal photos - yearbook photos and then there were photos you in the hallways, in class, and…”  
“What Allison?” I asked once she trailed off.  
“Giselle, he had photos of you when you were alone…when you were in your bedroom. Y-you were getting undressed in some of them.”  
I felt a shiver rip through me as I leaned against a nearby wall to steady myself as the air became shallow and I felt my mouth go dry. All the times I thought I was alone, I wasn’t. I was constantly being watched and while I thought I knew what privacy was, I hadn’t experienced it. Who knows how long he’s been doing that for. Stalking me. It felt as though a large part of myself didn’t belong to me anymore and it had been stolen by Matt. This fact alone clued me in to the fact that Matt’s infatuation with me was more profoundly disturbed than I ever thought it was. I felt somewhat exposed and the feeling made me hold myself as a way of covering myself although it had been seen by unwelcoming eyes.  
“Giselle!” Allison’s voice yelled to me, signalling that she had tried getting my attention previously.  
“I-I’m here,” I said, a shake sitting on top of my voice.  
“Lock your doors and windows, close your blinds, and tell your dad,” she told me firmly in the way a mother would, but when her voice shook like mine did, the tone sounded more like a sister - protective, but visibly scared.  
Once I thanked her, I hung up and forced myself together so Scott and Derek didn’t think anything was wrong. When they asked who was calling, I shrugged it off and told them it was Allison, but I hadn’t told them any of the horrific details of the conversation that sent my stomach to recoil. I knew now that their powers were preventing them from buying my lie, but when they returned to their conversation, I knew they were silently trusting that I would tell them something if it was important.  
“Go home, Scott,” Derek said, continuing their conversation. “It’s a full moon tonight and with the way things are going…” he inhaled. “…I have a feeling it’s going to be a rough one.”  
With a glance at each other, Scott and I decided to listen to Derek. As I followed Scott out, I felt Derek put his hand on my arm, stopping me. I turned to him along with Scott. Once I told Scott I would see him later, it was just Derek and I.  
“What happened?” he asked me.  
“Oh it was nothing,” I waved my hand. “Just a false alarm.”  
“You know I can tell when you’re lying,” he raised a brow.  
“Really?”  
“I can hear your heartbeat - when you lie, it has an uptick.”  
Being friends with werewolves was starting to become increasingly frustrating. I watched as Derek pulled a chair closer to his own and offered me to sit. Once I did, he mimicked my actions. I let out a huff of air as I turned to face him fully. “Did you hear another heartbeat that night Jackson attacked me?”  
Derek thought for a moment, recalling that night. “No,” he shook his head which left me more confused.  
“Are you sure?” I questioned. “ _Really_ think about it.”  
Derek took another moment to think and go through the details in his head, but he came up with the same answer. “I’m about 90% sure I didn’t hear another heartbeat other than ours.” _So there’s still a 10% chance_.  
“Giselle, what’s going on?”  
“I think I might know who’s controlling Jackson.” Derek’s soft, concerned expression became stone cold and serious. “I started to think about it that night at the rave,” I began. “I was thinking that maybe we didn’t catch whoever was controlling Jackson because they weren’t effected by the mountain ash. I was thinking that they were human. I was thinking...I-I think it’s…” I forced his name out of my lips. “…Matt.” Derek’s face was blank. “The guy who doesn’t know how to take “no” as an answer,” I clarified. “He’s been obsessed with me ever since the seventh grade and every month for four years, he never fails to ask me out on a date even though he knows what my answer is.” I paused as Derek let out a breath, astonished at Matt’s persistence. “He’s never missed a month, until now. He took Allison out on a date tonight and made a point to rub it in my face. _And_ he completely ignored me when he was talking to Scott and Stiles.”  
“So?”  
“Matt _never_ ignores me. If he’s not moving closer to me, he’s talking to me. If he’s not talking to me, he’s staring at me. It’s always something. But now, there was nothing. For the first time in four years, there was _nothing_.”  
“So you’re defenceless, pathetic stalker is controlling Jackson to get back at you?” Derek’s tone was cynical.  
“Derek, there were people who were murdered who were killed by Jackson who weren’t murderers,” I stood up and threw my hands up in frustration. “They’re just people who had the same class at one point and you can’t tell me that they were all murderers.” I paused to take a breath and stick to my point. “I know it sounds far fetched but think about it,” I began as I paced. “Matt’s not using Jackson to only get revenge on me, but to everyone who has ever wronged him. I don’t know how the swim team plays into his revenge fantasy, but I know how I do.”  
Derek sat back in his seat and folded his arms and looked up at me.  
“The beastiary says they’re bonded, right? That’s how Deaton described the kanima’s fear of water, despite Jackson being an excellent swimmer. If Matt’s fear of water transmitted to Jackson while he’s the kanima, what’s to say his anger won’t transfer over - the kanima is a weapon of vengeance,” I quoted the book. “Maybe that’s why he went after all those people who weren’t murderers.”  
“If Matt’s fears can effect Jackson…” Derek sat up in his seat.  
“…so can his anger,” I finished.  
“I don’t think I heard a heartbeat that night…” he paused, racking his brain. “…there-there wasn’t anyone else there. Do you think Matt was there?” he looked up at me.  
“Maybe,” I sat back in my seat. “At first I thought he was using Jackson to hurt me so I couldn’t fight back when he killed me, but now I’m just thinking that maybe he wanted to watch.”  
“But you said he wasn’t paying any attention to you,” Derek pointed out. “Wouldn’t that mean he’s losing interest in you?”  
I shook my head and clasped my seat with my shaky hands. “He has photos of me, Derek,” I muttered, too embarrassed to look at him. “Ph-photos of me around the school…ph-photos…” I felt the tense in my chest. I shut my eyes and tried to ignore that feeling and the nauseous feeling in my stomach. “…photos of me in my bedroom,” I choked out as a tear slid down my cheek. “He’s not over me,” I shook my head frantically. “He-he’s just waiting for Jackson to kill me,” my eyes flew open when I felt Derek place a comforting hand on my back. “I’m sorry,” I whispered while I dried my tears quickly. “Th-that was what the phone call was about. Allison found them on his camera.”  
I saw Derek nod his head from the corner of my eye. I looked over to him. “I need you to tell me everything you know about the kanima - myths, facts, legends - everything.”  
“Why?” Derek moved his hand from my back.  
“I _can’t_ just sit around anymore,” I stood up. “Scott and Stiles won’t let me help and I don’t know where to start.” My head craned up to look at Derek when he stood. “I can’t do nothing while Jackson is still out there.” At my pleas, Derek nodded his head.  
Derek led me up to his loft and pulled out every mythology book and I opened my laptop, ready to research anything that was online. His loft was big and the lack of furniture in it seemed to add to that feature. It held the bare necessities, a couch, a table, and a bed, but there were no personal touches such as photographs or posters.   
“The only way to resolve his emotional issues is to get some sort of emotional connection,” Derek paraphrased from the e-book we found online. “Something to bring him back to himself.”  
I groaned and threw my head back against the brown leather couch. We had been up for hours - Derek teaching me about the kanima then doing our own research on how to save Jackson.   
“I don’t think Jackson is capable of establishing an emotional connection with anyone,” I said as Derek sat back against the couch next to me. “And the only people he’d be willing to do that with are dead.”  
I let my eyes shut for a moment as I felt my eyelids relax after being strained open.  
“Giselle,” I heard Derek’s voice softly call.  
I hummed as my cheek pressed further into the warm couch. I forced my eyes open and head up only to realize I had fallen asleep for a moment on Derek’s shoulder. _Oh dear God_. I apologized profusely to Derek as I felt my face heat up. Falling asleep on a friend’s shoulder - one I’m not that close to - definitely wasn’t a shining moment of mine. “I thought it was the couch and-and I wouldn’t have put my head on your shoulder if I knew it was your shoulder,” I rambled as I sat up straight.  
Derek followed my moments and chuckled. “It’s okay. It’s late and we’ve been reading all night.”  
I pulled my phone off of the coffee table to look at the time. _2:47 AM_. “Oh God,” I rubbed my eye. “It is, isn’t it?” I noticed a few texts from Stiles and I figured that since I told him I was at Derek’s, he was just voicing his disapproval. “I should head home,” I put my phone into my bag.  
“You could crash here, if you want,” Derek offered and I turned to him. “It’s late, but if you don’t want to, I can take you home.”  
Stiles had covered for me and told dad I was at Allison’s for the night and it was late. Considering the new information I had received from Allison about Matt, I didn’t exactly feel safe going home, so what could it hurt?  
“Okay,” I nodded with a small smile as I set my bag down. “I’ll take the couch,” I decided. Although his bed was in the same room and big enough for the both of us, I figured that suggesting we share it would be bold.  
“ _I’ll_ take the couch and you take the bed, it’s more comfortable,” Derek refuted.  
“Derek, you barely fit on this thing while sitting. I can take the couch, you don’t have to be chivalrous tonight,” I joked. “I owe you one, remember?” With a smirk, Derek caved and we made ourselves comfortable in our respective beds.


	5. Chapter 5

I said goodbye to Melissa and a handful of others on the way out of the hospital that afternoon. Stiles picked me up and we were headed home to prepare for Lydia’s birthday party tonight. Since we were on spring break, I was able to get more volunteer hours during the day. Thankfully, I had my alarm set this morning, but it seldom helped considering I had to brush my teeth, shower, and change out of yesterday’s clothes.   
I woke up that morning in Derek’s bed and saw him bunched up on the couch. When I asked him about it when he drove me home, he explained that once I fell asleep, he moved me to his bed and took the couch for himself, concluding that I was a heavy sleeper. While I debated and said I was anything but a heavy sleeper, I eventually thanked him and felt a warmth sprout in my chest from one of the first friendly gestures he had offered.  
I debriefed Stiles about my theory about Matt controlling Jackson as I got ready that morning and on my way to the hospital. While he didn’t have hard evidence against Matt other than what I had told him, he believed me and pinpointed his belief on a gut feeling which I couldn’t argue with. It took a while for him to tell me this. It took a lot of sifting through his anger and disgust to get him to focus back on the main issue. I also told him about the research Derek and I did on the kanima, telling him to mentally note any emotional connections Jackson may have.  
“That thing is not going to fit in the jeep,” I informed Stiles when I noticed the large, wrapped box sitting in the middle of his room that evening.  
“We gotta make it work somehow,” he shrugged his jacket on.  
As I tilted my head to put my earring on, I found his dresser littered with women’s perfume and jewelry. I shot him a look and he told me he didn’t know what to get her so he got her a bit of everything.  
“Because _that’s_ not enough,” I gestured to the flat screen TV sitting on the ground.  
“Would you just help me, please?” he tore my attention away from his room and together, we hoisted the gift up and out of the house.  
Stiles has had a crush on Lydia since the third grade, so I don’t know why I’m surprised at the lengths he went to get Lydia the perfect gift. While I wasn’t a fan of Lydia myself, she always threw the biggest party of the year for her birthday and Jackson was bound to be there, despite their recent break up. Lydia was everything you’d expect from a girl of her popularity. She wore designer clothes, had the idea that she ran the school because of her status, she could be a complete bitch sometimes, and she got everything she ever wanted. Except for Jackson. Rumour had it that Jackson broke up with her because he was trying to cleanse his life and drop all the dead weight from it and that seemed to include her.   
The extravagant gift bumped around in the back seat of the jeep as we were on the way to Lydia’s. My gaze fixated on the full moon that was high in the sky and I thought back to Derek telling me he had to help Erica, Isaac, and Boyd control their shifts under the full moon. I also couldn’t help but realize that with this full moon, the kanima would grow stronger and we couldn’t afford it.

Lydia’s reaction to Stiles’s gift was mediocre as expected and when the both of us finally got the large present through the door, we immediately found Scott.  
“Have you seen Jackson?” Stiles asked him.  
“No, have you guys seen Allison?”  
I shook my head. “Anyone see Matt?” The boys shook their heads.  
“We’ve got to catch Allison up,” Stiles began. “All of the victims were on the 2006 swim team, not in Harris’s 2006 chemistry class.” Stiles and dad had figured it out once they realized Mr. Lahey was the coach for the team when flipping through the 2006 yearbook. All of the victims were on the team as well. While we hit a dead end when Jackson murdered the ticket distributor at the rave, we found her on the swim team, and it accounted for not only Isaac’s older brother, Campbell, but also Mr. Lahey.  
“This still doesn’t tell us why Matt would be the one killing these people,” Scott said, sending me an apologetic look. I knew it wasn’t because he didn’t believe me, but he didn’t want to get caught up in one suspect only to completely miss the signs of another suspect.  
“Who are we missing? Who have we not thought of?” Stiles asked as Allison approached us warily.  
“Jackson’s not here,” she told us.  
“Yeah, _no one’s_ here,” Stiles observed.  
He was right, the backyard was completely empty aside from us four and Lydia who was over by the punch bowl.  
“Maybe it’s early,” Scott suggested.  
“Or maybe no one came because she’s turned into the town whack job,” Stiles replied cynically.  
“Walking around the woods naked for a few nights doesn’t exactly earn you popularity points,” I muttered.  
“Neither does have hallucinations,” my brother added.  
“We have to do something, because we’ve completely ignored her for the past two weeks,” Allison replied.  
On their search to find who the kanima was, Lydia had to go into hiding at Scott’s place as Derek and his pack were sure that Lydia was the kanima since she hadn’t been effected by the bite. While everyone exited the house, Jackson was the only one missing from it but their questions pertaining to his whereabouts were answered when they saw Jackson fully transformed and escaping from Scott’s roof.  
“ _You_ guys have completely ignored her, I found out about this a few weeks ago,” I threw the responsibility off of myself and to the boys.  
“She’s ignored Stiles for 10 years,” Scott pointed out. “We don’t owe her a party.”  
“We made her the town whack job,” Allison reminded them and we couldn’t refute that.  
All four of us rounded up groups of people we knew and invited them to Lydia’s to kick off the party. Within the hour, the party was in full swing and Stiles and I decided to talk to Scott and Allison separately. Allison had told her family that Jackson was the kanima and was at the rave and their plan to kill him interfered with our plan to save him which caused them to have a small disagreement.  
“Have you guys talked yet?” I asked Allison as I took a sip of the punch that Lydia offered me.  
“Not really,” Allison spoke sadly. “What was I supposed to do?” she stomped on the ground. “My father knew that I knew something and people are dying. I don’t think that saving Jackson is an option anymore.”  
“I get it,” I told her calmly. “But you guys love each other and he’ll come to understand why you did what you did.” Allison’s eyes fell to her feet. “Scott knows you're on his side, Allison,” I reminded her. “It’s just…a tense situation.”  
“It just makes me want to scream,” she told me the moment my eyes landed on Jackson in the crowd.  
“Don’t do that,” I told her as my eyes find Stiles and Scott who seemed to realize the same thing as me. I discreetly gestured to Jackson and Allison caught my drift.  
“He showed up.”  
“So does that mean whoever’s controlling him is here too?”  
“It wouldn’t surprise me if they were.”  
As the party went on, I lost Allison, Stiles, and Scott amongst it all. When I found myself at the edge of Lydia’s pool, I found Scott sitting on the opposite side of it. I began to head over to him, but before he saw me, Matt stepped in front of me. “Hey…can we talk?” he asked.  
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I tried to walk away but I watched Scott walk away from his spot and from me.  
“Please - I know Allison told you what she saw, just give me a chance to explain.”  
“Fine,” I looked to him. “Talk.”  
“It’s-it’s kind of hard to hear,” he said over the music.  
“If you think I’m going somewhere alone with you…” I trailed off, taking a step back from him.  
“Just inside the house, away from the music, where people can see us,” he compromised.  
I knew that Matt wasn’t going to let up until he talked to me and told me his side of the story. I also knew that while he did want to talk to me, we would be surrounded by people and not completely alone. When got inside where there was an abundance of people in the cramped space, he tried to talk to me, but kept getting interrupted by people shoving past us every few seconds. He began to walk towards an open room that was empty. I stayed as submerged in the crowd as possible when he entered the room.  
“The door will stay open,” Matt compromised and I hesitantly entered the room. My legs wobbled as I held myself to try and ease some of my obvious anxiety. I didn’t want him to know the kind of power he had over me, but it was hard to not be scared around someone who was nothing like you thought they were. “O-okay,” he began as he rubbed his sweaty palms on his jeans. He took a step towards me and I took one back to maintain the distance between us. “I know that Allison told you about some pictures that I-I should’ve told you about, but…” he sighed. “…Is it really _that bad_ that I…” his eyes dropped to the ground, almost shyly. “…think you’re beautiful?”  
“There are ways of telling me that without secretly taking photos of me in my bedroom,” I informed him with a shaky voice.  
“You wouldn’t listen-“  
“How did you even get those pictures!?” I cut him off.  
“Telephoto lens,” Matt answered while breathing a laugh. “Giselle, they’re candids.”  
“They’re illegal,” I corrected, causing him to repeat the word in disbelief. “Through stalking me, you got photos - _revealing_ photos - of me without my consent, or even my knowledge. So _yes_. Illegal.”  
“Stalking,” Matt laughed humourlessly. “So I’m a stalker now? What? Do you think I go home to my room filled with photos of you? Do you think I’m the kind of guy who has the ‘if I can’t have her, no one can’ mentality?”  
“Wouldn’t surprise me if you were,” I muttered.   
“Well you know what? I think you need to get over yourself because there’s another pretty girl walking into the room every five seconds.”  
“How long is five seconds to you? Because for me, it’s lasted four years.”  
As I made my way out, Matt grabbed onto my arm and pleaded my name. In an instant, I twisted my arm out of his grasp and pushed him away from me. He collided with the wardrobe behind him and stared at me in shock.  
“Stay away from me,” I spat. “Or I _will_ tell my father about this.” I hated to play _that_ card, but it had to be done.  
“Not much he can do,” Matt called as I began to walk out. “He’s not the Sheriff anymore.”  
I grit my teeth and continued on my way through the party, desperate to find anyone I knew. I looked around for Scott, Allison, and Stiles specifically but I found Jackson with his gaze set on me. This only made me move faster as I continuously looked behind me then in front of me.   
When I looked over my shoulder just as I was about to exit the room, Jackson was no longer behind me.  
“I’m really sorry,” I apologized half-heartedly as I turned to see who I bumped into. I found Jackson who had the left side of his face and neck covered in scales as he looked at me with shallow, yellow eyes bringing my movements to a halt.


	6. Chapter 6

Stumbling backwards so I wouldn’t lose sight of Jackson again, I began to feel my body shake. I looked around to see people in the room whispering to each other while their faces showed their confusion and horror. I had no one now. It was just me and Jackson. Matt had sent Jackson to finish me off, our conversation had set him off and now I was going to pay the price for it.  
I couldn’t rely on any of these high school students to save me now, except for- “Scott,” his name fell from my lips as a whisper. “Scott!” I called louder, but not loud enough. “Scott!” I hollered once I felt my back hit a wall and Jackson was closing in on me. “Scott!” I cried as I covered my face when Jackson’s clawed hand rose high in the air, about to strike down on me. While the sound of multiple conversations increased, I peeked out through my fingers to see everyone conversing as if nothing had just happened and no Jackson. I frantically searched the room for any sight of him, but I didn’t find him anywhere.  
I ran out of Lydia’s house and to the backyard to where I last saw my friends.  
“Giselle!” I heard Scott’s voice.  
I whipped around to his direction and threw myself into his arms, relieved that I found him. “Scott, J-Jackson was here - the kanima was here,” I spoke frantically. “He was going to attack me.” I gripped onto the sleeves of his blazer when we pulled away.  
“It’s happening to you, too,” he sighed.  
“What’s happening?”  
“There’s wolfsbane in the punch and since it’s a full moon, it’s effecting anyone who had a glass of it.”  
As I observed all of the loopy teenagers surrounding me, Scott told me that he couldn’t find Lydia anywhere.  
“No, wait!” I heard from the distance. “Please don’t, I can’t swim!” the three of us saw Matt being tugged towards the pool by two jocks as he tried to squirm away. He can’t swim. When he was dropped into the pool, he was flailing about and his cries for help were swallowed by water.  
“It’s him,” I said to the boys.  
Jackson rushed over to the pool and pulled Matt out. Jackson wouldn’t do that. He didn’t regard Matt as more than a loser. But he pulled him out of the pool instead of laughed at him. When Matt stood next to Jackson, the two of them stared angrily at everyone who was staring at them.  
“What are you looking at!?” Matt demanded as Jackson fled. When he didn’t get a response, he turned to leave, stopping to glare at us as we stood in his way.  
After he pushed past us and everyone returned to their own conversations, I pulled my phone out. “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Stiles placed his hand over my phone. “What are you doing?”  
“I’m calling Derek,” I dialled his numbed. “He said he was going to help us.”  
“Wait, we still don’t know if it’s him for sure,” Scott told me.  
Then police sirens were heard and once their arrival was announced, everyone began to run out of Lydia’s house. I pulled the boys along, not wanting to get into any trouble. Once we were away from the house and Stiles went to get the jeep, I called Derek only to get his voicemail.  
“Derek,” I began when I stepped away from Scott. “It’s Matt - it’s a lot to explain right now, but it’s him. He's the one controlling Jackson and killing people.” I glanced to see if Stiles was near but there was no sign of him yet. “I-I said some things to him that I don’t think he took too nicely to them…” I bit my bottom lip. “We need you.” I took a breath to calm down. “I need you, Derek.” I hated to put myself in such a position to be seen in a vulnerable light, but Derek knew better than anyone just how vulnerable I was in this situation.  
“Giselle,” Scott spoke cautiously.  
I looked to him and when he looked before us, I saw him looking at a fuming and soaking Matt who had the kanima beside him on all fours with its tail wrapped around his legs. In the blink of an eye, they were gone. “Derek,” I continued into the receiver. “Call me back. It’s Matt. It’s definitely Matt.”  
Once Stiles pulled up in the jeep, we hopped in and raced home to tell dad that it was Matt. He was skeptical at first because it was hard to believe that a seemingly normal teenager was the cause of multiple murders but he also had his suspicions about Mr. Harris that weren’t easy to break since his car was at the rave.  
“You two believe this?” my dad questioned Scott and I.  
“It’s hard to explain how we know, but we do,” Scott reasoned.  
“Dad, you have to trust us,” I pleaded.  
Derek still hadn't called or texted me back in the span of time it took to get to the house and I was getting worried that something had happened to him. I was also worrying about the safety of the four of us. The last thing I wanted was for Matt to hurt anyone in this room, let alone have him slaughter me in front of my family and Scott.  
“Matt took Harris’s car,” Stiles began. “He knew that if there were enough tire tracks at the scene, they’d arrest Harris.”  
“Fine,” dad finally caved and just as the three of us were about celebrate, dad asked us for a motive and that’s where we fell silent, except for Stiles.  
When my brother attributed it to the horrible track record of the swim team, I went off of that horrible motive and told my father that Matt couldn’t swim. Knowing this, something had to have happened in relation to the swim team. Stiles pointed out further that this was more of a motive than Harris had.  
“What do you need me to do?” dad asked.  
“We need to look at the evidence,” Scott answered.  
“That would be at the station, where I no longer work.”  
“Trust me, they’ll let you in!” Stiles pleaded.  
“Trust you!?” dad pointed a finger at Stiles.  
“Trust…” Stiles whipped around to face Scott and I. “…them.”  
“Them…I trust.”

When we got to the station, we decided to look at the hospital footage on the night the pregnant woman - Jessica - died to see if Matt was there to finish the job that Jackson couldn’t. While I wasn’t there that night, I knew what floor and room she was in and if Matt was anywhere near there on the night she died, it would be pretty damning evidence.  
“There, there!” Scott pointed to the monitor and dad paused the footage. He was pointing to the back of Matt’s head.  
“That’s him!” Stiles exclaimed.  
“That’s the back of someone’s head,” dad looked to the boys with disbelief.  
“Yeah, _Matt’s_ head. I sit behind him in history, he has a very distinct cranium.”  
“Are you crazy!?” dad turned to Stiles.  
“No dad,” I defended my brother. “It’s him.”  
Dad’s expression softened. He knew that Matt had expressed his affection for me in less than appropriate ways, like in ninth grade when he insisted on walking me home. I had refused many times, but he still took it upon himself to follow me no matter what I said. When I told dad that night, he was furious and threatened to file a restraining order against him. I refused because I thought that it would go away due to the fact that we were in a new school with new people - specifically new girls for Matt to have a crush on. Matt had always made me uncomfortable and deep down, he always terrified me.  
“I could spot him anywhere,” I breathed a laugh at the discrepancy of romance in my sentence and the romance in this situation. You got to know the angles of people when you were trying to avoid them.  
“Hey-hey!” Stiles pulled everyone’s attention to the monitor and paused the video. “He’s talking to someone.”  
“My mom” Scott realized. In an instant, Scott called his mom to try and jog her memory. A photo seemed to do the trick as Melissa told him that she stopped him for tracking mud through the hall.  
“The shoe prints and the tire tracks at the trailer at the murder site…” dad listed as he shuffled around some papers.  
“If they match, it puts Matt at the scene of three murders - the trailer, the hospital, and the rave!” Stiles pieced together.  
“Three’s a pattern!” I commented.  
“Actually, four,” dad stood up slowly. “A credit card was received that was signed by Matt at the garage where the mechanic was killed,” he looked to Stiles. “Only a couple of hours before you got there.”  
“If three’s a pattern, then what’s four?” Stiles asked.  
“Four’s enough for a warrant,” dad answered.  
Stiles and I silently celebrated as dad told Scott to get Melissa down to the station. “If I can get an official ID from Melissa, I can get a search warrant. Stiles, tell the front desk to let Scott’s mom in when she gets here.”  
“On it!” Stiles exclaimed as he zoomed out of dad’s office as Scott called his mom. I checked my phone to see if Derek had responded to my voicemail, but I was met with a screen lacking any notification from him. “Hello!” I heard Stiles call and I decided to see what happened.  
When I left dad’s office, I immediately saw Stiles looking to the deputy who was on the floor and covered in her own blood. I began to follow Stiles as turned to head outside but we stopped short when we saw Matt pointing a gun at us.


	7. Chapter 7

“I hated to do it,” Matt’s voice shook when he looked to the deputy on the floor and I saw a tear pooling in one of his eyes. “But I had too,” he sighed when he turned to us. “She was reaching for her gun and I figured it was a matter of who could draw theirs first, and uh,” he began to laugh. “I…I guess I won.”  
“Stop it,” I spat as my eyes filled with tears.  
Matt pointed the gun directly at me while smirking, “Your dad’s in there right,” he cocked his head to the side where my dad’s office was. “I can’t wait to meet him,” he smiled. “I’ve dreamt of it, every night for the past four years while I looked at my walls that are lined with your photos,” he finished sarcastically as his hand gripped the gun so tight it began to shake.  
“You know, I’m so-“  
“Shut up!” Matt cut Stiles off and pointed the gun in his direction. He let out a breath and shut his eyes only to open them up again and display the same amount of fury in them. “Let’s go say hello then.”  
Stiles and I started to walk towards dad’s office before Matt stopped us. Neither of us turned but heard his footsteps getting closer. I felt his arm wrap around my neck. Not enough to choke me, but enough to send a tear down my cheek. Although my mouth was agape, no consistent air flow occurred as my body went rigid. I had no idea what Matt’s intentions were. Was he going to kill me right on the spot? Whenever someone moved in a way that he didn’t like? I didn’t even want to think about what he was feeling right now at our close proximity because I’m sure that it would make me sick to my stomach.  
“Hey! Get off of her!” Stiles began to charge towards us but Matt pointed the gun right at him.  
“Seriously? You’re going to argue with the guy who has the gun?”  
I shook my head to Stiles and urged him to cooperate and he did so. When we walked into the office, I watched a range of emotions flash over the faces of my dad and Scott. Matt pushed Stiles towards Scott with the barrel of the gun.  
“Matt,” dad spoke calmly as he slowly put his hands in the air. “It’s Matt right?” Matt nodded. “I don’t know what’s going on, but I guarantee there’s a solution that doesn’t involve a gun.”  
“You know, it’s funny that you say that because I don’t think you’re aware of just how right you are.”  
Jackson. I glanced to Scott - who looked like he was ready to lunge at Matt any second now - and Stiles - who looked helpless - and the looks on their faces told me they caught on as well.  
“I know you don’t want to hurt people,” dad continued, keeping his movements and voice calm as he stayed behind his desk.  
“Actually, I want to hurt _a lot_ of people,” Matt replied. I saw him turn to me out of the corner of my eye. He used the barrel of the gun to move away a stray strand of hair that lay across my cheek. The action sent more tears to roll down my face as I moved my face as far away from his as I possibly could. “You three,” Matt pointed the gun at the men in front of me. “weren’t on my list,” he looked to them now. “But I could be persuaded. One way is to try and call someone, kind of like McCall is doing now.” We all looked to Scott who whipped his hand out of his pocket. “That could definitely get someone…” Matt looked to me. “…killed,” he whispered.  
Matt demanded everyone to put their guns on the desk and complied as soon as he pressed the gun to my head. “I think I’m going to keep you,” Matt smirked. “You’re a very powerful method of persuasion.” Matt took it upon himself to dig into my front pocket and pull my phone out and toss it onto the desk.  
He then led all of us to the back where there holding cell was. He forced Stiles to cuff dad to the wall. Before we left, dad shot me a worried look and I didn’t know what to do to make this better for him, because I knew there was nothing worse for him than watching both of his kids being taken away by a guy with a gun, not being able to know what’s going to happen next.  
“Are you going to kill everyone in here!?” Scott questioned as we stopped in front of a hallway that held slaughtered deputies.  
“Of course not. That’s what Jackson’s for,” Matt quipped. “I just _think_ about killing them.”  
Matt forced Scott and Stiles to delete and shred up all the evidence that would’ve proven he was guilty. Matt had moved his arm to grip me around the waist as he forced me to sit on his lap. Stiles and Scott occasionally glanced to me to make sure I was as safe as I could be in this situation.  
“Deleted,” Stiles sighed in defeat as he pressed one last button on dad’s computer. “And we’re done,” he said once Scott shredded the last document. “So Matt, since all the people you brutally murdered deserved it…” Stiles had a taunting tone to his voice. “…for killing you…” he referenced what Jackson said to him, Erica, and Isaac when he was paralyzed at the rave. “…whatever that means. I think we’re good here, right? Just get my dad, leave Giselle alone, and we’ll go. You continue on the whole vengeance thing…enjoy the kanima.”  
Before Matt could respond, headlights shone through the windows into the office as we heard a car pull up. “Sounds like your mom is here, McCall,” he smirked.  
“Matt, don’t do this,” Scott begged. “When she comes to the door, I’ll just tell her to leave.”  
“We-we can tell her we didn’t f-find anything,” I spoke for the first time since I’d been kept in Matt’s captivity. My dad was already in danger and I couldn’t stand it if Melissa was too. We heard a knock on the door that Matt had closed before making his presence known to my dad and Scott.  
“If you don’t move _now_ , I’m going to kill Giselle, then Stiles, then your mom.”  
When the boys started to follow Matt’s orders, I got off of his lap only for him to wrap his arm around my neck again. My heart thudded as I waited with bated breath for Scott to open the door. I knew this sight was going to break Melissa’s heart and the second she was seen, she’d be put in immediate danger.  
However, when the door opened, Derek stood there, causing Scott, Stiles, and I to huff out a breath of relief until he fell to the ground like a rag doll at my feet and Jackson stood in Derek’s place at the door, half of his face and arms covered in scales and protruding claws. Matt roughly yanked me down to the ground with him to kneel next to Derek. My knees slammed down hard against the floor next to Derek’s head.  
Derek glanced at Matt, unimpressed. “This is the one controlling him?” he questioned us. “This kid?”  
“Well Derek, not everyone’s lucky enough to be a big, bad werewolf,” Matt replied. “Oh-oh yeah! I’ve learned a few things lately!” he craned his neck over his shoulder to look at Scott and Stiles as Jackson awaited his next command. “Werewolves, hunters, kanimas - it’s like a Halloween party every full moon!” His head turned to me. “Except for you, Giselle,” he lowered his voice as he ran the gun along my jawline. “What do _you_ turn into?”  
“Let her go,” Derek warned.  
The sound of his voice made Matt’s actions come to a halt as he slowly turned to look at Derek. He pulled me up to stand before sending his boot right into the side of his face. I whimpered out his name as I was roughly spun around to Scott and Stiles.  
“How about you, Stiles?” Matt called. “What do you turn into?” he demanded to know.  
“An abominable snowman,” Stiles replied immediately. “But it’s more of a seasonal thing, you know? Winter…”  
With the nod of Matt’s head, Jackson stepped forward and paralyzed my brother, sending him toppling onto Derek.  
“Get. Him. Off of me,” Derek demanded as Matt bent down again and of course brought me with him.  
“Oh, I don’t know Derek. I think you two make a pretty good pair,” he replied. “You and Stilinskis seemed to get along well,” Matt tightened his grip around me as he clenched his teeth together in anger. “It must suck though,” he breathed a laugh. “To have all that power taken away from you with one little cut to the back of the neck. It must _suck_ to feel helpless.”  
“I’ve still got some teeth,” Derek said. “Why don’t you come down a little closer and see how helpless I really am?”  
“Yeah, bitch,” Stiles encouraged Derek.  
Headlights flooded the station again as the sound of a car pulling up was heard. “Is that _her_?” Matt questioned Scott who responded with silence. “Do what I say,” he began as he brought me to my feet. “And I won’t hurt her,” he promised Scott. “I won’t even let Jackson near her.”  
“Scott, don’t trust him!” Stiles warned. Matt used his foot to flip Stiles onto his back before he pressed his foot against his neck, cutting off his air.  
“Stop it!” I protested as I tried to kick his foot off of my brother. I squirmed my body against his, determined to get Stiles out of Matt’s hold. “Matt, stop it!” I cried as Stiles began to choke.  
I felt Matt fling his body away from mine which sent me flying, but I tripped as our legs were intertwined, sending me face first into the doorframe that led to the holding cell. Blood ran down from my nose as I turned myself around to the scene before me to see Matt pointing his gun at me. “Does this work better for you?” Matt questioned Scott.  
“Stop!” Scott’s voice rasped out.  
“Then do what I tell you to!”  
“Okay.” But this didn’t stop Matt from hurting Stiles and pointing the gun at me until a moment later.  
“You,” Matt pointed the gun at Jackson. “Bring them in there,” he pointed to Stiles, Derek, and I then to the office. “You,” he spoke to Scott. “With me.”


	8. Chapter 8

While Stiles and Derek lay paralyzed on the ground, I was against a wall with Jackson standing in front of me, almost like a bodyguard, but he was nothing of the sort to me. Through the wall I could only tell who was talking, but not what was being said.  
A sudden gunshot forced a scream to escape my mouth before I covered it with my hands.  
“Giselle! Stiles!” I heard dad’s voice boom through to us. When he didn’t get a response, he tried to reason with Matt.  
“Shut up! Everyone just shut up!” Matt yelled before demanding more things for Melissa and Scott to do.  
After a few moments of silence, Scott came in and I immediately noticed the red stain spreading all over his mint top from a gunshot to the torso. “Scott, oh my God,” I cried at the sight as I moved towards him only to be slammed against the wall by Matt.  
His body pressed against me and in that moment, I couldn’t think of a worse position to be in. The warm barrel of the gun ran down my forehead. “I _really_ would hate to see you get hurt princess,” Matt spoke softly, his eyes examining my features up close for the first time as the gun followed the curve of my cheekbone. “But you’re making it very hard for me,” he whispered. I moved my head away but only got so far before Matt grabbed a hold of my jaw and kept my head in place.  
“Matt, stop!” Scott began to approach us but Jackson stepped in front of him, cutting off his path and daring to paralyze him.  
Silently, Matt continued to move the barrel down my face, a small smile pulling at his lips - one of adoration and I couldn't help but feel sick. The gun touched my bottom lip and dragged it down before it snapped back into place. “I love you,” he whispered to me and the confession sent a sob of fear through me.  
A growl emitted from behind Matt and broke the silence. I watched Matt’s expression turn from adoring to menacing in a matter of seconds. He slowly turned to the source of the sound along with everyone else in the room to see Derek’s eyes glowing red.  
“It looks like I’m not the only one,” Matt mused when Derek’s eyes returned to green.  
He turned to me and yanked on my arm and I was back in his grasp with the gun pressed to my temple and Matt’s lips against my opposite. I shut my eyes tight to try and stop the tears from flowing. “Look at him,” he told me but I couldn’t bring my eyes to open. “Look at him!” his voice going hoarse from yelling.  
I forced my eyes open and saw Derek’s eyes were filled with worry.  
“Remember Giselle,” Matt began as his grip tightened around my neck. “When I said I’m not the kind of guy who has the “if I can’t have her, no one can” mentality?” I didn’t respond but my eyes stayed locked on Derek’s. “Giselle!” Matt laughed as if he hadn’t seen me in years. “If I can’t have you, _no one can_ ,” he enunciated the words “no one” and pressed the gun harder against my temple.  
He cocked the gun prompting Scott to try and come to us again. Matt whipped over to point at Scott and released me. My legs weren’t strong enough to support me as I fell on all fours next to Derek. My arms and legs shook as I could barely hold myself up. My head stayed bowed as I sniffled and sobbed.  
“We destroyed all the evidence,” Scott said. “Why don’t you just go?”  
“You think the _evidence_ -“ he kicked me over onto my back and I landed right next to Derek. “-is what’s important? I want the book.”  
“What book?”  
“The beastiary! Not just a few pages, I want the entire thing.”  
“I don’t have it,” Scott informed him. “It’s Gerard’s. What do you want it for anyways?”  
Matt hesitated before lowering the gun. “To explain this,” he lifted his striped t-shirt to reveal scales growing along the side of his torso. Scales like the kanima’s.  
“Hey, do you guys know what’s happening to Matt?” Stiles whispered to us once Matt and Scott left the room and were left with Jackson to guard us.  
“The book’s not going to help him,” Derek told him. “There are rules, he can’t break them.”  
Although I had information to provide, I couldn’t do anything but lay next to Derek. I felt completely and utterly violated. I was up close and personal with someone who I couldn’t even stand being the same room as. I could only thank my lucky stars that he hadn’t decided to take it further. I couldn’t help but feel the tension in my chest ease the slightest bit at the thought that something was happening to Matt and he didn’t even know how to stop it.  
“He’s using Jackson to kill people and killing them himself. The universe always balances things out,” Derek explained, “if he breaks the rules of the kanima, he becomes the kanima.”  
“He’s not going to believe us when we tell him that, is he?” Stiles wondered out loud. “So we just sit here and wait to die?”  
“Not if I can find some way to push the toxin out of my body.”  
“How are you going to do that?”  
“Triggering the healing process.”  
When Stiles began to ask how, he trailed off and labelled whatever he saw as gross. My head was pounding and my eyes were heavy. I had no energy to move my head. “Can you hear anything?” I whispered to Derek as I lay perfectly still. “With Scott and Matt.”  
Derek took a moment to listen. “Matt was at Isaac’s place…they were trading comic books,” he began relaying what they were saying. “It was the night the swim team won State and Mr. Lahey invited them over for drinks.” Another moment passed. “He was thrown into the pool. He couldn’t swim…no one helped him.  
“He took photos of all the people he killed - Lahey, the mechanic…Jackson killed them all.”  
“That’s what he meant…” Stiles mused. “…About those people killing him.” I continued to lay there, unaffected by this information. “How’s that situation coming along?” Stiles asked Derek after a few minutes.  
“I can feel my toes.”  
“Dude, _I_ can feel my toes.”  
I couldn’t help but wonder why they were paralyzed much longer than I was. When I was paralyzed the night Jackson attacked me, it lasted for only about fifteen minutes. These thoughts immediately left the moment all the lights in the station died down. The alarms in the station went off but they were immediately drowned out by the sounds of rapid gunfire that shattered all the windows and didn’t stop for a good few minutes.  
When the gunfire ceased, I saw that Jackson was no longer guarding us and I got up immediately to help Stiles up as Derek was able to move his arms. When Scott appeared, he took care of Stiles and I helped Derek onto his feet slowly.  
“Take him!” Derek instructed Scott. “Go!” he barked and Scott listened.  
When Derek stood, I stabilized him as he stumbled. In the dark room, all I could see was Derek’s glowing red eyes.  
Then, I heard my father calling from down the hall to try and get some context as to what was happening. “Dad!” I called and took off down the hall to get to him, ignoring Derek’s calls.  
When I got to the holding cell, I saw Melissa behind bars with the mascara she cried off staining her cheeks and my dad passed out on the floor at Matt’s feet.  
“What the hell did you do!?” I rushed over to my dad only for Matt to strike me in the face with the pistol. I fell onto my back as Matt stood over me. He pointed the gun at me as he fumed and ignored Melissa’s pleas to spare my life. “I really loved you,” his voice shook with anticipation as he cocked the gun.  
A growl sent everyone to freeze in their spots and turn their heads to the source. In the entrance of the room, Derek stood with his face fully transformed with his red eyes locked on Matt. I could practically feel the fear radiating off of him as he stood still, unsure of what to do.  
Then, opposite Derek, there was a seething that came from the kanima. Everyone turned to it as it challenged Derek to a rematch who accepted with a growl. The two charged at each other and Matt took the opportunity to slip out of the room. I crawled into the closest corner as Derek slammed the kanima onto the desk next to me only to be kicked back by it then flipped over the desk and landing next to me. The kanima came charging at me but before it could get anywhere near me, Derek was standing between us and sent it stumbling back with a backflip kick to its chest. The kanima hoisted itself up onto the bars and seethed at Melissa which caused me to spring up.  
I was thrusted back into the wall by Derek’s body that the kanima kicked my way. I groaned my back slid down to the ground and I was sat against the wall. My vision was blurry and no matter how many times I blinked, it wouldn’t clear. The fatigue in my body was about to take over but the pain in my head, back, and legs were keeping me awake. “Oh God,” I muttered as my head fell back to the wall behind me.  
“Giselle!” Derek’s voice called at a slower pace than I’m sure he spoke in.  
“I’m okay,” I told him as my eyes shut.  
“Giselle, keep your eyes open!” he prompted urgently as he shook my shoulders and pulled me off of the wall. My head lolled to the side but was picked up by his hands.  
My eyes found their way open to see the kanima leaving. “Go,” my voice was only a whisper but I knew Derek would hear it. “Go catch that thing,” was the last thing I said before passing out.


	9. Chapter 9

The details in my curtains were more apparent which told me about the sun’s arrival that early morning. I had shut them when I was getting ready for Lydia’s party that night and ever since then, I couldn’t bring myself to open them. I hadn’t gotten any sleep the past few nights since the incident at the station because every time I closed my eyes, I saw Matt or heard his voice telling me he loved me. It had happened three days ago and I hadn’t left my bed since I got home from the hospital. I had passed out due to all the pain in my body and the psychological and emotional stress of being in the situation I was in. Despite my bruises and concussion, I was physically fine. All I needed was some rest and I’d be okay. Physically. Spring break was coming to an end which meant I hadn’t received any academic repercussion for staying in bed, but I would have to get up soon since school was only a handful of days away.  
Hunters had ambushed the station in search of Derek. When Allison left Lydia’s party early, it was because her mother had killed herself upon becoming a werewolf and Allison wanted to avenge her mother by killing Derek. Her venture proved unsuccessful as Derek was next to me when I woke up in the hospital. Allison’s sudden investment in her family’s business sparked uncertainty in Scott about her and where her loyalties lied now.  
Matt had been found dead in a river a few blocks away from the station. He had drowned and when the department had heard my father’s explanation as to how he was the cause of all the murders, he got his position as Sheriff back at the station. With his returned title, he went on a search warrant of Matt’s room only to find the photos of me on his camera and edited photos of me and him on his computer. That night, dad came home and held me tight for hours, apologizing for things that were completely out of his control. Considering dad was isolated from us and passed out for half of the time, he still remained clueless to the supernatural and only suffered a minor concussion.  
There was nothing that could shake the disgusting feeling I had when I thought about the photos Matt harboured on his computer. He had edited himself into each photo - made it to look like we were kissing or holding hands. He had manipulated my existence to fulfill his fantasies about me in some medium. I couldn’t help the anguish I felt knowing I was exploited this way without even knowing it. I couldn’t help but think about him telling me he loved me. All I could think of was how many times he had rehearsed it in his head and maybe the second he really said it to me, his reality had shifted even more than it already did. No amount of showers could wash away the feelings I had. I was disgusted, mortified, and just plain uncomfortable.  
Stiles couldn’t help but look at me and dad with pity. I know he thought this was his fault, but like the edited photographs, this wasn’t in his control. He hadn’t been sleeping either and he would come to my room and we’d sit in silence. I preferred that, because when he did talk to me, it was an overflow of worries that he spilled onto me. I reassured him time and time again that things were okay, and the things that weren’t, would be soon. We talked about Derek and Matt’s comments about him. I explained the day Derek gave me a ride to the hospital - the only time Matt had ever seen us together - and attributed it to being blown out of proportion by Matt’s obsession.  
Scott had come by multiple times in a day to check on me - sometimes Stiles, but mostly me. Melissa found out that he was a werewolf and while she wasn’t taking it well now, I knew she would come around, because she loved Scott more than anything. The tension between Scott and his mom was clearly driving him crazy, but I knew things would work out for them. For the first few visits, Scott would sit with me in my room and just hold me close to him.  
While everyone was worried about me as I bared the brunt of the situation, I couldn’t help but pinpoint these feelings of pity to a long list of feelings that made me feel disgusting. I was the only one there who broke down and was a complete mess. Everyone reassured me that I had never been through something like that and the fact that I was a specific target for Matt for scary reasons, I had every reason to react the way I did. Still, I couldn’t help but be embarrassed at my reactions and essential uselessness.  
Derek and I had discussed Matt’s comments made towards us. It was an awkward conversation that we had to have. I asked him why he got the most protective of me. While Scott easily could’ve shifted, he didn’t, but Derek did and we hadn’t known each other that long. Derek explained it as a scare tactic. Up until that point, Matt had never experienced a werewolf first hand, so his first time seeing one - an Alpha specifically - was sure to send him into a frenzy of fear. Derek usually visited me at night when my father got home. At first, we just sat in a silence that made me contemplate whether or not Derek was expecting me to break down right then and there. I assured him that he didn’t have to feel obligated to come and check on me, but he told me he wanted to. He even showed me something magnificent.

_“Have you been sleeping?” Derek asked as we sat side by side on my bed. I shook my head as my exhausted eyes refused to move to look at him. “Giselle,” he looked to me. I used all my might to pull my head up and look at him. Slowly, Derek reached over and moved the hair that was covering my bruised face. His hand cupped my cheek just under my black and purple cheekbone and my eyebrows pulled together.  
“What are you doing?” my voice was soft.  
Derek shut his eyes as his breathing became laboured. I saw trails of black leading up the veins in his arm and away from my face. I felt the throbbing in my face and back slowly become non-existent. When I noticed the pain was becoming too much for him, I pulled his hand away from my face gently. I watched the last bit of the black trail up and under his sleeve.  
I studied Derek’s face when his eyes slowly opened and any trace of pain he felt was gone as he relaxed. “What did you do?” I asked as I held his hand in mine as I continued to look at his arm which looked like nothing had happened.  
“I took away your pain,” he answered._

A light rap on my door made me huddle close to myself and invite my dad in. He was coming in to check on me like he had been doing these past few mornings before he left for work. “Honey,” his usual gruff voice was softer than normal as he peeked into my room. I patted the bed next to me and he entered my room, bracing himself against my door as he stumbled over my shoe. After shutting the door quietly behind him, he came over and sat on the edge of my bed as I gave him a small smile. I didn’t want him to worry about me anymore than he was. I know seeing me being held captive by the gunman wasn’t a pretty sight for him.  
Slowly, dad’s hand pushed my hair behind my ear, exposing my now fading bruises. “They’re healing fast,” he noted with his hand on my jaw as his eyes examined the bruise on my cheekbone and the bruise splayed over my nose. “Still beautiful,” he sent me a sympathetic smile and I returned it as best as I could.  
“Are you sure you’ll be okay at home?” dad’s pained eyes took in the state of me. “Because I can stay home if you need me to.”  
“Dad,” my voice was hoarse from barely using it. “I’m going to be fine.” I knew whenever he offered to stay at home, it was more so for him to feel at ease. To know that if I did end up needing him, he was only a few seconds away. But I needed to get better. “Go be the sheriff,” I smiled.  
“Okay sweetheart,” he decided to listen to me.  
Dad pulled me into his arms and I let myself lay in his embrace. I could close my eyes safely whenever he held me. I knew I wasn’t in danger anymore because whatever I saw when I closed my eyes wasn’t real and if it was, I know dad would be there and I wouldn’t have to face whatever it was that was hurting me - whether it was Matt or Jackson - alone. My eyes closed and if they could talk, they’d scream their gratitude. “I love you, dad,” I muttered sleepily.  
“I love you too, Giselle,” dad placed a kiss to my head as he slowly assisted me in lying down, but the second I was out of his embrace, my eyes flew open.  
When he left, a second passed before Stiles snuck into my room. He climbed into my bed next to me and we lay quietly beside each other. “Nothing?” I referred to the amount of sleep I assumed he’d gotten.  
“Not even a wink,” he sighed.  
I pulled the covers over us and laid down to stare at the ceiling like we’d been doing these past few nights. Then I got an idea. I glanced over to Stiles before scooting closer to him and putting my head on his shoulder. I shut my eyes, but my idea had failed when they flew open instantaneously at the sight of Matt’s shallow eyes. After his head snapped to me, Stiles moved closer to me, nudging my shoulder in the process to let me know he was here and whatever I saw when I shut my eyes wasn’t. I let out a yawn as I let my eyes focus on the ceiling.   
I had gotten out of bed later that day to tend to my hunger, then once again to send Stiles and dad off to the school’s lacrosse game. While Stiles was usually a benchwarmer, dad still went to support the team. I decided to pass, not sure if I could stomach being outside, let alone near Jackson. The question hung in the air as to who was controlling him now that Matt’s dead. Dad had suggested that I speak to a therapist about what I was feeling, but I tried to hold off, knowing we didn’t have the money for that. If it came down to that, I would speak to the school’s guidance counsellor and go from there.  
My phone rang and it sent me charging to it to silence it immediately. I took a breath as I answered it monotonously.  
“Giselle,” Derek’s voice stayed soft but I could realize the urgency behind it. “It’s Lydia. She’s the one who can save Jackson.”  
“What do you mean?” I sat down onto my bed.  
“Jackson needs an emotional connection to ground his identity in. The kanima works alone - without a pack which is why it seeks a master instead of a friend. Who else grows up without a pack?”  
“An orphan,” I answered after a moment of thinking. “Jackson was an orphan.”  
“Since he doesn’t have his family to attribute his identity to, he attributes it to other connections - to Lydia. The strongest connection he has. I’m going to the game to find her.”  
“No, don’t!” I protested immediately. “The Argents still want you dead and with Gerard being the principal, I don’t think he’ll be absent at the game. The second he sees you he’s going to kill you.”  
“He won’t see me,” Derek promised. “The game is almost over and I don’t think he’s going to stick around long.”  
Reluctantly, I let him go through with his plan. A few minutes after I hung up, my phone rang again, and this time it was my dad.  
“Giselle, did Stiles come home?” he asked me.  
“No? Shouldn’t he be at the game?”  
“Something happened and I can’t find him anywhere.”  
“What happened - are you okay?”  
“I’m fine. You call me if he comes home.” A beep cut me off and I instantly began to bombard Stiles’s phone with calls, voicemails, and text messages. When I got no response, I called Scott to get some context.  
“Gerard’s the one controlling Jackson - he was going to make Jackson kill someone on the field if I didn’t bring him Derek-”  
“Scott, Derek’s headed to the school now!” I warned.  
“Jackson did it to himself!” Scott spoke over me. “He empaled himself onto his own claws.”  
“Where’s Gerard?” I asked, confused as to why he’d let this happen.  
“I-I can’t find him anywhere. All the lights went down and when they came up, Jackson was lying in the middle of the field and Gerard disappeared.”  
“So did Stiles…” I mused.  
“We’re going to find him.”  
“What if Gerard took Stiles?” I suggested.  
“I’m going to find him, Giselle. I will.”


	10. Chapter 10

I had gotten out of my pyjamas and freshened up. Stiles needed me and I couldn’t let that night drag me down right now. If I wanted to help I had to keep moving forward, or else I would never stand a chance in this supernatural world. I had to draw a line on where I was going to be helpless and the point my brother was in danger seemed like a good place to draw it. A key in the front door sent me bolting towards the stairs. “Mischief!” I called but my hopes were shot down when dad walked in instead.  
“Anything?” he asked me and I sombrely shook my head. “Did you find anything? Any clues in his room about anything?” he asked as we went to Stiles’s room.  
“Nothing,” I shook my head.  
“I’ve got an APB out on Stiles. His jeep was still in the parking lot.”  
 _Stiles wouldn’t leave the jeep behind if he was willingly going somewhere_. “What do we do now?” I asked my dad as he sat on Stiles’s bed.  
“We…” he sighed, hating to say the word. “…wait.”  
An hour had passed with no word from or about Stiles. Derek, Isaac, and Scott met at the school and they had come to the conclusion that Jackson’s death was to benefit Gerard in some way. He knew a lot about kanimas - he knew more than to let one die on his watch.  
The wait for Stiles was excruciating. All we could do was pace around and call everyone we knew to keep an eye out for him. When dad was about to reach his breaking point, Stiles appeared in the doorway of his bedroom with a bruised cheek and bloody lip.  
“Oh my God, Stiles,” I sighed in relief as dad rushed over to examine his injuries.  
“What happened?” Dad demanded.  
Stiles fed dad a story about being beaten up by the other team for mouthing off. Dad was persistent on getting any information on these so-called bullies to put them away, but Stiles constantly reassured him that it was okay.  
Once dad left the room upon Stiles’s request to be alone, I pulled Stiles into a bone-crushing hug of my own and he returned the strength in his hug. I felt at peace knowing he was here, alive, and safe. His absence tonight caused me more pain than anything that happened in the station.  
“It was Gerard, wasn’t it?” I asked once we had pulled away.  
Stiles nodded. “He has Boyd and Erica tied up in their basement.”   
“Derek had told me they were leaving to find another pack,” I told him.  
“Gerard’s trying to get information on Derek from them, but they haven’t told him anything.”  
I took the chance to explain what had happened to Jackson on the field.  
“Where’s everyone now?” he asked me.  
“Scott, Isaac, and Derek all met at the school and that’s all I know.”  
“They’re probably checking on Jackson.”  
Stiles was right. When we called Scott, he and Isaac were at the hospital checking on Jackson after Melissa noticed his venom dripping from his body bag. When they opened it, they found Jackson covered in a cocoon of his own venom but he wasn’t dead. He used his teeth to snap at anything that got too close to him. When Stiles asked to be alone, I reluctantly left his room and went to mine to call Derek, figuring he’d want to know about Erica and Boyd. I told him about what Stiles saw and then told him about what Scott, Isaac, and Melissa discovered at the hospital with Jackson.  
“Yeah, I know, we’re looking it up right now,” Derek replied.  
“We?” I opened up my laptop.  
“Yeah, me and…Peter.”  
“Your dead uncle?”  
“Formerly dead,” I heard another voice reply. It belonged to an older man as it had an essence of confidence that only came with age.  
“You could’ve told me I was on speaker phone,” I muttered.  
“You’re not. Peter just has a habit of eavesdropping.”  
I hummed as I began to search to mythology e-books, trying to find an explanation for Jackson’s current state. I looked through the pages and came across one that had a photo of the kanima with wings coming out of its back, and it looked a lot stronger. _While the kanima carries its reptilian features from its beta form, it eventually grows wings as it evolves into a stronger, more lethal version of itself. Evolution occurs once the kanima has taken its own life_. “Um…Derek,” I spoke with bated breath.  
“We’re looking at the same thing,” Derek told me in an uneasy tone.  
“Derek, Jackson’s at the hospital, you need to tell Scott to get him out of there!” I instructed as I got out of my bed.  
“I will - try and find Lydia!” he replied before hanging up.  
I dashed out of my room and straight to Stiles’s just in time to find him yelling at Lydia. I hadn’t heard her come in, but her timing was impeccable. “Stiles!” I barked over his yelling as I got in between the two.  
Stiles’s angry expression fell as he realized what he had done. “Oh my God, I’m so sorry,” he breathed.  
“It’s okay,” a teary-eyed Lydia replied. She slowly turned towards the door as she spoke, “I’ll find him myself.” and she was off.  
“No wait!” I called as Stiles called her name, but she was already on her way.  
As I relayed Stiles what Derek had told me, our dad appeared in the doorway of Stiles’s room. He had questioned him hopefully, wondering if Lydia was a potential girlfriend of his to which Stiles informed him that she was in love with someone else.  
I placed a hand on Stiles’s arm once dad took a seat next to Stiles. “Look,” he began. “I know getting beaten up and Jackson dying has you shaken, but be happy about one thing.” Stiles and I gave dad a questioning look. “The game,” he grinned at Stiles. “You were amazing.”  
“You played!?” I faced him and he nodded. “On the field!?” Stiles smirked and nodded again. “With the team!?” another grin and nod.  
“Like a champ,” dad replied. “It was pretty much over and then Stiles got the ball and he scored.”  
“You scored!?” I laughed with glee.   
“Then he scored again, then again, and again.”  
“You were MVP, Mischief.”  
“Not only that, he was a hero.”  
Stiles shook his head, the smallest trace of his smile now gone. “I’m not a hero, dad.”  
“You were at the game,” Dad patted him on the back before leaving.  
“Stiles-“  
“I’m not a hero, Giselle.”  
“I know it doesn’t feel like it now, but you are,” I promised. “And if you need more convincing, there’s still a chance for you to be a hero…again.”  
Stiles called Lydia and after apologizing profusely, he told her we would take her to Jackson. We told her we’d help him but we couldn’t do it without her. His reluctance to helping Jackson peeked out through his urgency. I knew that Stiles didn’t want to reunite Jackson with the girl he had been in love with forever, but seeing him put his wants aside for the greater good made a sense of pride swell in me.  
“Lydia, bring the key!” Stiles told her before handing up and starting the jeep.  
“Key?” I quirked a brow.  
“Yeah, Jackson gave her a to his house - it might help.”  
“Hey,” I called once silence fell over us for a few minutes. “I’m sorry I didn’t come tonight.”  
Stiles shrugged it off. “It’s not a big deal.”  
“It was,” I nodded with a smile. “It sounded amazing.”  
“Yeah…” Stiles smirked. “I guess it was.”  
Luckily enough, Lydia didn’t get that far so she met us by Stiles’ jeep. Once Lydia was in the car, we headed to the warehouse where Scott told me he and Isaac were meeting Derek and Peter. It was a vast open space with large crates along the edges of it. Stiles circled around the building until Lydia found an opening that was hidden by plastic covering. Deciding we could easily drive through that, Stiles floored it. Before he could stop, he hit the kanima, sending it to the ground.


	11. Chapter 11

“Did I get him!?” Stiles exclaimed to Scott, Isaac, Allison, Argent, and Derek who were already at the warehouse as well as Lydia and I.  
Before anyone could answer, the kanima hopped onto the hood of the jeep, sending the three of us into a screaming, scrambling frenzy to desert the jeep. Stiles bolted behind Scott while I knelt down to Derek who had been on the ground, pushing his upper half up. “What happened?” I asked him as I assisted him in helping him get to his feet.  
“Gerard…he wanted the bite-“  
“Lydia!?” Stiles’s voice cut off Derek’s explanation.  
I looked to where Stiles was headed to see the strawberry blonde holding up the gold key in front of Jackson who was ready to strike her with his claws. Slowly the scales on his face began to thin out as he shifted back to his human self with hints of scales on his face and arms. When Jackson took the key out of Lydia’s hand, he took a step away from her and held his arms out.  
“What’s he doing?” I whispered to Derek.  
“Stay back,” was the only response I got before Derek charged at Jackson. I then saw another man charge at Jackson from behind with slicked back hair and the smallest hint of facial hair. I could only assume it was Peter. Jackson was slowly lifted up into the air by Derek and Peter’s claws. After a series of gasps and choked out breaths, Derek and Peter removed their claws from Jackson’s body to send him plummeting into the ground.  
Lydia rushed over to Jackson’s side when Derek returned to mine. He was only an inch in front of me, just in case the plan didn’t work and Jackson attacked again.  
“Do you still…” Jackson choked out to Lydia.  
Lydia nodded frantically. “I do,” she whispered as she held his upper half up. “I do still love you,” she sobbed quietly.  
The sound of the key dropping from Jackson’s hand onto the ground below us indicated he had died. Slowly, Lydia laid his body down before turning away from him and sobbing for all of us to see.  
“Where’s Gerard?” Allison took the attention off of Lydia.  
“He was bitten with mountain ash in his system,” Argent replied. “He couldn’t have gotten very far.”  
Derek briefly explained that Scott had switched Gerard’s tin of pills he had been taking since his cancer diagnosis with a similar tin of pills filled with mountain ash. Scott knew Gerard wanted the bite to cure him of the cancer, so Scott thought of a way to reverse the effects of the bite and the only way to do that was through mountain ash.  
I noticed Stiles approaching Lydia to comfort her but stopped short once we heard a scraping on the ground. I noticed Jackson’s right hand slowly curling into a ball. _It hadn’t worked. Jackson was still alive_. I felt myself cowering behind Derek some more as I grabbed onto his arm out of fear. It wasn't until he moved his arm out of my grasp that I realized what I had done. As I was about to apologize, Derek took my hand in his and I felt a sense of security.  
Jackson had pulled himself off of the ground before throwing his head back and letting out a roar. When he looked to Lydia, his face shifted back to human as the ice blue eyes faded and was overtaken by his normal green eyes. Jackson had finally become a werewolf. Lydia threw herself into his arms and they held onto each other, not daring to let go. Stiles approached his jeep and I couldn’t help but feel pain for my brother knowing he had to watch the girl he loved save the guy she loved.  
I decided it was time to go home and I headed towards Stiles and got into the jeep with him, sending a wave to everyone before we pulled out of the warehouse. “We saved him,” I said to Stiles. “I know seeing that didn’t feel great, but you’re a hero, Mischief.”  
“I didn’t do anything,” Stiles scoffed.  
“You knew it was Matt all along.”  
“So did you.”  
“But _you_ helped find hard evidence against him. And you brought Lydia to help Jackson even though it wasn’t easy for you to do.” Stiles shook his head as we pulled into the driveway. “It’s okay to take some credit for yourself,” I reminded him before I got out of the jeep and went inside.  
I found myself back in my room, in my pyjamas, and laying under the covers with the only light source being the fairy lights I strung around the headboard of my bed. While the events at the station with Matt still stuck with me, I felt more at ease knowing that Jackson was saved. It felt good to help - it made the voice in the back of my head telling me I was safe, louder. Matt definitely wasn’t coming back from the dead which meant he couldn’t come after me anymore. All I had of him were memories and memories couldn’t hurt me. I couldn’t help but wonder how Scott and Stiles dealt with situations like this. They had come close to dying so many times and they still kept putting themselves in danger to save people they didn’t even know. While this experience terrified me, I felt exceptionally weak. It only motivated me to want to be stronger and learn how to deal with these things. Knowing what I know now, I can’t sit back and let the people I care about get hurt if I can help it. I needed to get stronger - physically and mentally to try and help in some way.  
A creak near my window sent me to bolt straight up in bed. Slowly, I got out of my bed and moved as quietly as I could towards my window. On the way over, I picked up a paperweight from my desk. My heart thudded and I tried to use that fear as motivation to protect myself. In one motion, I swung open my curtain and got ready to swing in the direction of my window. I jumped at the sight of Derek and let out a sigh as I lowered the paperweight back onto my desk.  
“Were you going to bludgeon me to death?” Derek laughed.  
I rolled my eyes with smirk at how poorly thought out my plan of attack was. “I have a front door you know.” I remarked once I unlatched my window and let him in.  
When he hopped in, I shut the window and turned to him to see him holding a folder that held all the kanima research I had printed out, highlighted, and extra notes I made on the side. “I like to stay organized,” I smiled sheepishly while I took the transparent purple folder out of his hand and placed it next to the row of highlighters on my desk.  
“You don’t need it anymore,” Derek reminded me while sitting on the edge of my bed. “Jackson’s a werewolf now.”  
“I know,” I sat next to him. “Do you want to explain how Peter came back to life?” I asked.  
Derek went on to explain how Lydia had poisoned him with wolfsbane on the night of her party, which explained her disappearance from it. She took Derek back to the old Hale house where Peter was buried and used Derek to revive Peter.  
“Why would she do that?”  
Derek shrugged. “I think he was controlling her somehow. When I saw her before she knocked me out, her eyes looked…empty.”  
“Lydia’s… _something_ , isn’t she?”  
“Peter’s bite didn’t do anything to her - they may have amplified the powers she has.”  
“He did help,” I noted. “Maybe he’s not as evil as he used to be?”  
Derek shook his head. “Never underestimate Peter,” he simply warned.  
Peter was only a minimal example of how dangerous Beacon Hills really was. “I want to help with whatever comes to Beacon Hills.”  
I noticed the hesitation in Derek’s expression. “You had a lot of close calls.”  
“So did you, Scott, and Stiles.”  
“I don’t know, Giselle…”  
“What’s the harm in doing that?” I pointed to the folder on my desk. “I can’t let you guys get hurt and just…let it happen,” I shook my head at the idea.  
Reluctantly, Derek agreed. “That’s kind of why I came, actually,” he began. “Something’s coming,” his tone was serious but remained calm. “Nothing is happening yet, but I want you to tell me if you notice anything…out of place.”  
“Okay,” I nodded with furrowed brows.  
“You’re not in any danger,” he promised me. “But I want you to be cautious.”  
I nodded again, noting I had to get stronger faster. “Have you heard from Erica or Boyd?”  
Derek shook his head and the somber look on his face made me instantly regret asking. “I don’t think they’re ever coming back.”  
Hesitantly, I placed a hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry,” I whispered.  
Derek turned his head to me and gave me a small smile. “I should go,” he stood up, letting my hand slide along his back and eventually fall into my lap.  
“All right,” I stood up as well.  
I watched Derek toy with my curtains before looking at me. “You can open these now,” he pushed them aside. “You’re not in danger anymore.”  
I smiled at his reminder. “You can use the front door.” I led Derek out of my room - catching him as he stumbled on my shoe. I laughed quietly to not bring Stiles out of his room.  
“You really need to find a new place for those,” Derek grumbled, clearly embarrassed.  
I made my way down the stairs and to the front door with a smirk on my face at his comment, thankfully not running into Stiles on the way out. I opened the door and Derek stepped onto the porch. “See how much easier that was?” I raised a brow as I leaned against the door.  
Derek shook his head. “Would’ve been easier if the shoe wasn’t in the way.”  
“Oh come on, Sourwolf,” I smirked before it turned into a full-blown smile upon Derek’s reaction to my knowledge about my brother’s nickname for Derek.  
“Goodnight Giselle,” Derek wished once our laughter died down.  
“Goodnight…” I smiled up at him, sending him off. “…Sourwolf,” I finished as he was halfway down the driveway.  
I shut the door the second I saw him stop in his tracks. I found myself climbing the stairs faster than normal and heading to my window, tripping over my shoe on the way in. I saw Derek standing in the driveway and looking up to my window. _Oh God, why did I do that? He probably thinks I’m a weirdo. He did stay in the drive and wait for you to get to your room_. In the midst of my inner conflict, I watched Derek raise his hand and smile up at me as he said his final goodbye. I heard my thoughts drown out and I smiled back and waved at him before he took off into the night.

“All right dad,” I tightened my ponytail that summer afternoon. “Hit me with your best shot,” I smirked.  
Dad had been teaching me to defend myself the second I asked. Slowly, I got better and was able to take whatever he threw at me. My injuries healed in a matter of weeks, talking to Ms. Morrell made me feel better, and I even began to get to my regular sleep schedule. Dad had also taught me how to use a gun, just in case the situation ever called for it.  
“All right sweetheart,” dad panted below me as I had his arms pinned behind his back and I stood over him triumphantly. “These bones aren’t as strong as they used to be.” With a chuckle, I helped my dad up. He turned to me with a smile that exuded his pride in how far I’ve come this summer with dealing with the trauma, being able to defend myself, and my dedication to my volunteer hours at the hospital. “I’m so proud of you, Giselle,” he cupped my cheek momentarily. “Now clean all this up,” he told me sweetly and with that he was off.  
My smile fell as my eyes couldn’t help but squint critically at the living room that we had rearranged so we had space to spare. I smirked when an idea came to my head. “Mischief! Scott!” I called to the boys upstairs, because what else are best friends and brothers for?


	12. Chapter 12

“It’s a good thing you drew me a picture,” the burly, bearded tattoo artist said to Scott who sat in the chair in the tattoo parlour that evening. He placed the picture of the two bands onto the table and sat next to Scott who had his left sleeve rolled up. Scott decided to end the summer by getting a tattoo. He described it as a reward for not calling or texting Allison all summer while she was away in France. While they had broken up for real, he remained optimistic in their relationship. Despite Stiles’s protests about the tattoo, Scott got comfortable in his seat as the tattooist placed the tool to his skin. “You don’t have a problem with needles, do you?” he asked Scott who shook his head.  
“I tend to get a bit squeamish…” Stiles answered the question that wasn’t meant for him. Ignoring his remark, the tattooist put the tool to Scott’s skin and started doing his job. This resulted in Stiles fainting but before he fell to the ground, I caught him and brought him over to the row of chairs to lay him down. After slapping a cool towel onto his forehead that the tattooist provided, I took a seat next to Scott to support him, subtly reminding him to not break my hand that he was holding with his werewolf strength.  
This summer had been calmer than I expected which made me rethink Derek’s warning after we had saved Jackson. Derek had found out I had been training and asked me to help him train Jackson. While I didn’t stand in the crosshairs and was there for more moral support and observing what Jackson could be doing better, there was one day where I was the subject of interest for Jackson.

_The sun beat down on the three of us as we stood outside the charred Hale house in the middle of the woods. About three hours had passed and we were all exhausted from today’s training, but Jackson was struggling to fight against a certain attack Derek continuously used to slam Jackson straight into the dirt. After doing this for possibly the millionth time that day, Derek let out a breath of aggravation as Jackson laid on the ground, clearly wanting to never get up again. I rolled my eyes as I crouched down and began to pick at the grass below me. The heat wasn’t helping our moods, but Derek refused to let Jackson go until Jackson got the upper hand over him.  
I tossed the stray pieces of grass I picked out before standing to my feet. “Come on, Jackson,” I encouraged but my tone was the opposite. In an instant, Jackson leapt to his feet and charged to me, fully transformed. My back hit the ground with a thud and I immediately got my hands around Jackson’s sweaty neck. I struggled to get my foot between us and onto his torso to kick him off but I didn’t need to as Derek ripped Jackson off of me and sent him straight into the ground again. His roar shook the leaves off of some of the trees, effectively forcing Jackson to force back into human.  
I sat up with help from Derek. “Are you okay?” he asked as he looked me over.  
“I’m fine,” I nodded, although I was disappointed that I couldn’t get Jackson off of me.  
“I-I’m sorry,” Jackson panted from his spot on the ground. “I didn’t mean to.”  
Derek and I looked to Jackson to see him propping himself up on his elbows and looking up at me remorsefully.“It’s okay,” I shook my head.  
“It’s the heat,” Derek concluded. “Go home Jackson, we’ll pick it up tomorrow.” Jackson followed Derek’s orders and left, but not only before apologizing to me once again.  
“I couldn’t get him off of me,” I muttered as I put my hands on my hips.  
“I’m sorry, I should’ve been paying attention,” Derek approached me.  
“Don’t be,” I shook my head. “You didn’t know he’d attack.”  
“I should’ve been-“  
“Derek,” I cut him off. “I’m fine. I just thought I could handle him myself.”  
“You’re not as strong as him - especially when he’s not in control of his emotions.”  
I nodded as I slung my bag over my shoulder and headed home. I knew I would never be able to be as strong as Jackson, Isaac, Scott, and Derek which left me at a dead end again. I had to find a new defensive method, because I was tired of being saved. _

“All done!” the tattooist announced.  
Scott beamed and thanked the man vehemently. By this point, Stiles had been awake for a few minutes and was okay to drive us home. When we got into the jeep, Scott began to complain about a burning sensation on his bicep from the tattoo.  
“Well, yeah you just got stabbed with 100 000 needles,” Stiles remarked.  
“Yeah, but I don’t think it’s supposed to feel like this.” A moment later, Scott groaned in agony as he shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “Oh, it’s definitely not supposed to feel like this!” he added as he began to unwrap the bandages in time to see the tattoo healing itself.  
“Oh thank God,” Stiles sighed. “I hated it.” His confession earned him glares from Scott and I. Deciding Scott couldn’t go back in and ask for a refund, Stiles headed off down the road.  
“There has to be some way to keep the tattoo from healing itself. Some packs have tattoos of their pack symbols,” Scott told us.  
“Why don’t you ask Derek?” I suggested. “He has the tattoo of the triskelion on this back, so he seems to know how to do it.”  
“How do you know that!?” Stiles barked, glaring at me in the rearview mirror.  
I rolled my eyes as I sat up in the back seat. Ever since I had been hanging around Derek more, Stiles had no problem voicing his disapproval, constantly calling and texting me whenever I was with Derek, waiting up for me when I was out late with Derek, and sending death glares Derek’s way at any chance he could. “His shirt came off in the midst of all the crazy, hot sex we’ve been having and I got a glimpse of it,” I answered.  
“What!?” Stiles’s voice boomed through the confined space of the jeep as Scott burst out laughing.  
“How do you know if Allison’s coming back to school if you haven’t talked to her all summer?” my brother said to Scott once he recovered from my answer.  
“I don’t know if she _is_ coming back,” Scott replied as we pulled up to a red light on the empty road. “With everything that happened, I wouldn’t blame her if she didn’t come back.”  
I heard a car pull up next to us and as fate had arranged it, it was Lydia and Allison that pulled up next to us. I looked to Stiles with wide eyes and he was looking at me in the rearview mirror with the same expression. “I’d say she’s most likely coming back,” he said.  
“More like definitely,” I added. Scott’s expression silently asked us what we were talking about, and when Stiles nodded out the window, his face changed at the sight of Allison and I knew his world shifted back into place. Allison laughed at something Lydia had said but when she looked past the redhead, she froze and instantly, they turned away from each other’s lines of view.  
“Oh-Oh my God!” Scott stuttered as he shrugged back into his seat and Stiles waved to Lydia. “Stiles, can you go, please?”  
“It’s a red light…?”  
“Stiles it’s an open road, just go!” I said.  
“We should say something,” my brother suggested and before we could protest, he rolled down Scott’s window and called out just as Lydia floored it away from us. “You know, they probably didn’t see us,” Stiles shook his head. When the light turned green, Stiles continued to drive as we had a considerable distance between Lydia’s car and ours. Just as Scott began to voice his worry that the girls might think we were following them and when we rejected the idea of taking a turn since there were none, Stiles slammed on the breaks. Only a short moment later, the girls did the same and now we were all stopped in the middle of the road.  
“What are they waiting for?” I asked.  
“I-I don’t know,” Scott shook his head, still frazzled from seeing Allison so unexpectedly.  
“Do you think-“ Stiles was cut off by a loud crash and the sounds of Lydia’s and Allison’s screams.  
We exited the jeep immediately and rushed over to them as they exited Lydia’s car. I approached the front of the car to see a deer laying across the hood as its head lay through the broken windshield. Its fur was stained by its own blood as it lay lifeless. “I’m not okay!” Lydia cried as the boys checked on her and Allison. I looked down the road to where it came from to see the moon high in the sky and the empty road before us. Deer collisions were usually products of cars hitting deers, not deers hitting cars. “A deer just ran straight at us! Why would it do that!?” Lydia questioned. “I saw its eyes right before it hit us,” she spoke quieter now. “It was like it was crazy.”  
“It wasn’t crazy,” Scott said from beside me. “It was scared.” He reached his hand out and placed it on the deer’s body. “Actually…terrified.”  
 _I want you to tell me if you notice anything…out of place_. Derek’s voice rang in my head. All things considered, I classified this as strange.

Getting Stiles out of his room and to school that morning was harder than I anticipated. While he was up, dressed, and ready to go, he couldn’t tear himself away from his laptop as he researched deer collisions in the town in the past few years. He found that very few were a result of deers running at cars. After dad and I pulled him away from his computer, we had got to school - all of us ready to take on the new school year. On the way in the school, I saw the missing people reports for Erica and Boyd posted on the bulletin board that their parents had called in about a few days after they ran away. When I asked Derek if he had heard from them, he told me their phones got disconnected and he worried that they had died.  
He compared the feeling of losing a pack member to losing a limb. He didn’t say anything, but I knew Derek was dragging himself along gravel only by his hands. I tried to help him get through the uncertainties of Erica and Boyd’s whereabouts, but I shortly found that I didn’t know what to say.  
When Stiles, Scott, and I got to class, it wasn’t long before Allison and Lydia arrived. Lydia sat next to Stiles who sat in front of me and Allison was forced to sit in front of Scott since someone else took the seat behind Lydia and the seat in front of her was preoccupied when she got there.  
I felt my phone shake my desk with its vibrations and I whipped it off of the table in hopes that it was Derek. Following Jackson’s training and departure from the country to go to London for a fresh start since dying and coming back to life wasn’t exactly an easy thing to do, Derek’s absence in Beacon Hills had increased. I figured he was searching for Erica and Boyd. I told him about what happened last night and he told me that he noted what was said. I hadn’t gotten much out of him throughout the summer, which while I understood, I couldn’t help but be angry that he frequently left. If Beacon Hills really was anticipating another supernatural threat, then we should be constantly communicating with each other, right? Part of me couldn’t help but think I did something wrong.  
The message I got was from an unknown number and it was a small paragraph. I noticed everyone else’s phone had gone off as well and they were all observing the message.  
“The offing was barred by a black bank of clouds…” a clear voice began to read the message followed by the clicking of heels against the tiled floor. I looked up to see a woman with long curly hair wearing a blouse, pencil skirt, and heels. While she didn’t look old, I could tell she was older than us. In her hand, she held her phone as she continued to read the message she sent to all of us, “…and the tranquil waterway leading to the uttermost ends of the Earth…” she continued as she leaned against her desk now. “…flowed somber under an overcast sky seemed to lead into the heart of immense darkness,” she finished with a smile. “This is the last line to the first book we are going to read,” she looked to each of us in the room. “This is also the last text you’ll receive in this class. Phone’s off everyone.”


	13. Chapter 13

She introduced herself as Ms. Blake. She had taught at several schools as a substitute, but was in Beacon Hills High as our regular English teacher for the year. Ms. Blake gave us an assignment to do before class was over, so she could try and get a feel for our writing to try and give us some pointers to improve. In the midst of the activity, Scott had been called out of class by his mother, and I guessed it was for something supernatural.  
“Hey Lydia,” Stiles whispered into the silent air. “What happened to your ankle? Is that from the accident?”  
I leaned over in my seat to see a bandage wrapped around Lydia’s ankle that blended well with the colour of her skin. “No,” the redhead answered. “Prada bit me…” she confessed, almost ashamed.  
“Your dog?”  
“No, my designer handbag,” sarcasm was laced with her voice. “Yes, my dog,” she answered seriously amongst seeing my brother’s look of disapproval.  
“What if it has something to do with the accident yesterday?”  
“How?” I leaned in closer as I glanced to Ms. Blake to make sure she hadn’t caught us talking.  
“You know how animals freak out right before an earthquake?” I nodded. “What if it’s like that?”  
“So an earthquake’s going to happen?” Lydia smirked.  
“No,” Stiles rolled his eyes. “But something…something bad.”  
“Derek said something was coming,” I told them. “The night we saved Jackson, he told me that something was coming.”  
“What-and you didn’t tell me?” my brother flailed in his seat.  
“I told Scott,” I replied before explaining that he would actually listen to what I was telling him and not be concerned that I had gotten the information from Derek. “Maybe you’re right.”  
“What’s that thing you guys say about threes?” Lydia asked.  
Before either of us could answer, there was a hard bang against the window where Lydia was sitting. We found a blood stain on the window from whatever crashed into it. I listened to Ms. Blake’s heels hit the tiled floor as she approached the window. When she did, we saw flocks upon flocks of birds flying towards the school. One by one, birds kept crashing into windows before some eventually broke through and flew around the classroom. “Everyone get down!” Ms. Blake yelled over the squawks of the birds and our classmates yelling as they were being pecked by the birds. I felt Stiles pull my head under his arm as we got to the ground and under a desk. Eventually, they left through the window once again, leaving behind some stray feathers and a few bloody classmates.

When the police, medics, and concerned parents showed up, Stiles called Scott to tell him about what happened. Scott described the alpha he had run into in the hospital who was trying to take Isaac. He had been in some sort of accident and it was only a matter of time before he healed so Scott got in to get him out of there before he was rolled into surgery.  
Meeting halfway at the old Hale house, I saw Isaac laying on a table unconscious and in a hospital gown. The only other people Stiles and I were met with were Derek and Scott. I didn’t know how to feel walking into the old Hale house. I knew I should be focusing on the weird supernatural things that were happening all around us, but I couldn’t help but feel my stomach form knots as we got closer to the house. The lack of communication between Derek and I made me feel like I shouldn’t be going into his house - as if I wasn’t welcome. Regardless, I tried to maintain a pokerface as my brother and I entered the house.  
“Are you going to tell me what that was back there?” Scott asked Derek when Stiles and I arrived. “That alpha.”  
“He’s from a rival pack,” Derek answered as he made his way over to Isaac with some herbs in hand. “I know you want to help, but it’s my problem. You’ve helped me out a lot already - I owe you one,” he added before turning away from us and working on Isaac.  
Upon Derek’s request for us to go home, Stiles and I began to leave, but stopped when we saw Scott rooted in place, holding his arm where his tattoo once was.  
“Actually,” he looked to the alpha. “There is something you could do for me.”  
When Scott explained the situation to Derek, he had stripped to his tank top and sat in a chair as Derek sat across from him. I watched his eyes flicker from green to red as he held Scott’s bicep. “I see it,” he said. “Two bands, right?” he traced where the tattoo would be with his fingers. The idea for the tattoo came from something Scott said he would trace with his fingers all the time. He labelled the tattoo as a reward for not calling or texting Allison all summer even in times that he was desperate to do so.  
“The pain’s going to be like nothing you’ve ever felt before,” Derek warned Scott.  
“I’m ready,” my friend replied.  
Once Derek lit the blowtorch, Stiles immediately tried to leave before Derek held an arm out and stopped my brother in his tracks. “You need to help hold him down,” he instructed. I took hold of the shoulder of the arm that was about to be burned and Stiles took the other. “You remember how much I fought against this when you did it to me?” Derek spoke to me for the first time since my arrival and I nodded. “It’s going to be a little like that.”  
As the flame got closer to Scott’s arm, I couldn’t help but wince, knowing that this amount of pain would be unbearable, even for a werewolf. Even though it would result in him getting something that he really wanted, it almost didn’t seem worth it to me. When the flame made contact with his arm, Scott tried to hide the pain it was in before it quickly got too much which sent him into a fit of yelling before he passed out. A few moments after Derek had fired up the whole tattoo, it appeared on Scott’s skin just before he woke up. With many thanks, Scott and Stiles headed towards the door.  
“Is that what you warned me about in the summer?” I asked Derek as his back was turned to me and focused on Isaac. “The rival pack.”  
“Yeah,” he simply said.  
“Let me help you.”  
“You can’t.”  
“Why not?” I challenged.  
Derek’s hands fell to the table with a frustrated sigh as his shoulders slouched before he turned to me, the first time his attention was ever only on me today. “Because I can handle it. Go back to being a… _teenager_.”  
My brows furrowed at his response, not understanding what it meant as he turned his back to me again.  
“You painted the door!” Scott called before I could contemplate any longer. I saw him inspecting both sides of the door. “Why’d you paint the door?” his tone turned accusatory. “And why only one side?” I saw the door was painted red on the outside but brown on the inside.  
“Go home - all of you,” Derek ignored Scott until he began to claw at the door and peel away the paint much to Derek’s protest and dismay.  
I rushed over to the door to see a symbol. A triangle in the middle of it with lines branching out from each point of the triangle. The symbol itself looked threatening with all the sharp angles it was made up of.  
“The birds at school, the deer last night,” Scott listed. “Just like the night I got trampled by the deer the night I got bit by the alpha.”  
“So there’s a new alpha,” I stated.  
“How many?” Scott asked Derek who sighed heavily.  
“A pack of them…an alpha pack.”  
“How does that even work?” Stiles asked.  
“I hear there’s some sort of leader,” Derek shrugged. “He’s called Deucalion. We know they have Boyd and Erica. Peter, Isaac, and I have been searching for them for the past few months.”  
“Say you find them, how do you deal with an alpha pack?” Scott said.  
“With all the help I can get.”  
“Where’s the girl?” I heard from behind us.  
It was Isaac sitting up on the table.  
“What girl?” Derek questioned.  
“There was a girl that came in with Isaac last night in the ER,” I answered. “I don’t know who she is or why she was with him, but Melissa said she knew about Isaac being a werewolf.”

The next day at school, Lydia and Allison showed me the bruises they had on their arms. They told me a woman came in when Stiles and I left and she was looking for Scott. The description of the woman they gave me matched the one Melissa gave me - woman in her mid-20s, long black hair, brown eyes, and dark skin. While I thought that was it, when Lydia and Allison put their arms together, the bruises were exactly symmetrical and were thought to be a symbol of some kind. They showed Scott the night before when he and Stiles went to a party. Scott didn’t know what to do, so he called Derek who had only grew more frustrated than he already was at having to come down when he could be looking for Erica and Boyd.  
“I don’t see anything,” he huffed once he saw the bruises side by side.  
Scott glanced to Stiles and I who sat on a desk in the empty classroom we were all in. “Look again,” he pleaded.  
“How is a bruise going to tell me where Erica and Boyd are?” Derek glared at Allison.  
“Oh come on, they’re symmetrical,” I rolled my eyes. “It has to mean something.”  
“It’s nothing,” Derek’s hard gaze remained on the huntress.  
“They’re trying to help,” Scott whispered.  
Bitterly, Derek brought up Allison’s days of hunting werewolves where she almost murdered Derek’s pack and then reminded everyone that Lydia had used Derek and was the reason his sociopathic uncle was alive.  
“If you want to help, find something real.” And with that Derek was headed for the door, although he was stopped by Scott, he kept on his way.  
I rolled my eyes as I got off of the desk and followed Derek out. I couldn’t believe that he was turning down the only clue we had gotten so far that could possibly help his pack members, especially after telling me how debilitating it was to lose a member of your pack. “You can’t keep doing that,” I told him in the empty hallway.  
“What?” he turned to me.  
“Shutting us out when we’re trying to help you; to help Boyd and Erica.”  
“You can’t tell me you believe them,” Derek’s pale green eyes narrowed.  
“I do actually,” I folded my arms. I noticed my tone beginning to turn nasty so I took a breath. “Look, I know that Erica and Boyd going missing hasn’t been easy on you and knowing the alpha pack has them makes it worse, but this should tell you that you need us now more than ever.”  
“I _need_ you all to find something real instead of wasting my time. The full moon is tonight and Deucalion is planning to kill them.”  
“How do you know that?”  
“Peter got into Isaac’s memories from when he found Erica and Boyd.”  
“So we _need_ a plan!” Derek rolled his eyes and I was getting tired of his attitude. “And _you_ ,” I began as I approached him. “need to stop acting like a little brat boy bitch so you can find your pack.” I turned on my heel and walked away, leaving a stunned Derek in the middle of the hallway. However, as I walked away, I couldn’t help but wonder why we had gotten so hostile with each other so easily. 

On my free period, I joined Allison and Lydia in the library as they tried to figure out what the symbol their bruises made meant. While Allison and I looked through ancient symbols in hopes to find the symbol I sketched out from when I looked at the two side by side, Lydia sighed, “I want one.”  
We looked over our shoulders to see the two new twins who transferred here this year. They had dirty blonde hair and charming smiles. Their teeth contrasted against their tan skin as their builds were small but muscular.  
“Which one?” Allison smirked.  
“The straight one, obviously.”  
Allison and I looked back at the twins just in time to see Danny bump into someone as he locked eyes with one of the twins who looked just as interested as Danny did.  
“How did you-” I began to ask, but stopped short when I realized the seat in front of me was empty and Lydia had gone to one of the twins to exchange numbers with him. I rolled my eyes, deciding not to expect more from Lydia than that. I turned back to the drawing and noticed how it was perfectly symmetrical. “What if she missed a detail?” I asked Allison. “I mean, she couldn’t have bruised you perfectly. She _had_ to have missed something.”  
“Or maybe we are,” Allison mused. She pointed to the Beacon Hills symbol on the coffee cup Lydia was drinking out of. “What if it’s not a symbol? What if it’s a logo?” She turned to her laptop and types _Beacon Hills Business Logos_ into the search bar.  
“Giselle,” I heard my dad’s voice. He was with a deputy. I loved to be around my father, but not when he was the Sheriff with a deputy following him, because that was never a good thing.  
“Hey, is everything okay?” I worried.  
My dad glanced to Allison, signalling he wanted to speak to me alone. “Text me,” I told Allison when I finished packing up my things and followed my dad out.  
“Did Stiles say anything about Heather’s party?” Dad asked me when we walked through the hallway.  
Heather was a childhood friend of Stiles as she and I didn’t get along after she excluded me from playing with her and Stiles as kids. Last night was her birthday party that he and Scott went to. “No,” I shook my head. “Not a word, what’s going on?”  
“She’s been missing since last night and her friends say Stiles is the last person she saw.”  
When we pulled Stiles out of class, he explained that they were in the basement, he left for a second, and when he came back she was gone, so Stiles thought she went back with her friends. The rest of the night went on at the party and Stiles didn’t think anything of her disappearance from the basement.  
“What would an alpha pack want with a teenager?” I asked Stiles once he finished telling me and Scott his theory about Heather’s whereabouts.  
“Derek did say teenagers are easier to turn,” Scott noted.  
“What would alphas need a beta for?”  
“I don’t care,” Stiles butt in. “But we have to find her. Our moms were best friends before mine died - we used to take freaking bubble baths together when we were three. We have to find her.”  
“We need Isaac to remember,” Scott said.  
“How?” Stiles sighed as he stopped in the middle of the hallway. “Peter and Derek were barely able to do it - do you know any other werewolves that know the trick?” The trick was a werewolf - usually an alpha - inserting their claws into the back of someone’s neck to access or take another person’s memories.  
“Not a werewolf,” Scott began. “But someone who knows a lot about them.”


	14. Chapter 14

Deaton suggested putting Isaac in a trance-like state by slowing his heart rate down. The idea was to submerge him in ice water and talk the information out of him. Derek and Scott held him down by the shoulders but when Isaac shifted, Stiles and I stepped in to grab his legs and tried to stop him thrashing around in the tub. When Isaac stopped thrashing around, he rose to the surface. We all removed our hands from him and let them rest at the edge of the tub just in case he tried to get out again. After Deaton reminded everyone he would do the talking, he spoke to Isaac who responded with his eyes shut. When Deaton asked him to recall the night he found Erica and Boyd, his calm demeanour changed to one riddled with fear.  
“I-I don’t want to do that,” Isaac’s voice quivered out of fear and the low temperature of the water he was in. At his distress, the lights in the clinic began to flicker while he thrashed around in the tub.  
“It’s all right,” Deaton spoke softly. “Just relax.” Soon enough Isaac stopped splashing around and proceeded to tell us the building where Erica and Boyd were was made of marble and it was deserted. When Isaac relaxed the lights had gone back to normal, but they started to flicker again which told us he was back in distress.   
Isaac’s hand flew to my forearm and he grabbed onto it along with Scott’s. “Th-they see me!” he cried as he tried to get out of the tub.  
Derek’s hand flew to Isaac’s that was wrapped around my arm. While Isaac’s grip wasn’t hurting me and I understood he did it out of fear, it could get to a point where he did accidentally hurt me. Isaac pulled my hand to his chest along with Scott’s, holding us close for protection. The cold water nipped at my hand, but that was the only discomfort I experienced. When Deaton talked him down, his grip loosened again and I cautiously pulled it away from him and out of the water.  
Deaton looked to me while I dried my arm off on my shirt. I nodded, letting him know I was okay and he continued, “Tell me what you see.”  
Isaac’s eyes flew open. “I heard them. Boyd’s talking about being out of control when the moon rises.”  
“Talking to Erica?”  
“I-I think so. I-I can’t see them,” his teeth chattered. “Either of them.”  
“Can you hear anything else?”  
“They’re worried what they’re going to do under the moon. They’re worried th-they’re going to hurt each other.”  
“If they’re locked in together during the full moon, they’re going to tear each other apart,” Derek spoke quietly.  
Deaton continued to try and get specific information out of Isaac that would narrow our search, but as the lights flickered and Isaac thrashed, he kept screaming that they had him. “This isn’t working,” Derek decided. “Isaac, where are you!?” he yelled.  
“I-I can’t see it’s too dark.” Isaac continued as he squirmed against Scott and Derek’s hold.  
“Tell me where you are!”  
“You’re going to confuse him and he’s going to go into shock,” Deaton spoke to Derek calmly.  
“Derek, stop!” Scott demanded.  
I pulled Derek’s hand off of Isaac and pushed him back and away from the tub.  
“It’s-it’s a vault!” Isaac cried as I stood in front of Derek. “They-they’ve got me! They’re br-bringing me into a room. There’s a…there’s a body…” Isaac paused. “…oh God, it’s Erica,” he whispered. As all of us stood dazed at what he just said, Isaac sprung up from the tub. “I saw it!” he was out of his trance-like state. “I saw the name!” he said as he exited the tub. “It-it was _B-Beacon Hills First National Bank_!” he recited as Scott and Deaton covered him in towels.  
When Isaac came to, we realized that he didn’t remember the last thing he said before becoming conscious again. When we informed him of what he said, there was still the girl in the vault with Boyd that had to be accounted for. The theory of it being the girl that saved Isaac was shut down when Isaac told us that she wasn’t a werewolf - just someone who knew about them. Derek vehemently refused that Erica was dead despite what Isaac said he saw.  
“We need to go tonight,” Derek stopped pacing around the clinic.  
“You can’t just go marching in there, Derek,” Deaton advised.  
“Isaac did, that girl did; why can’t we?”  
“We need a plan,” I stressed.  
“How are we supposed to come up with a plan on how to break into a stone vault in less than 24 hours?” he quizzed.  
“I think someone did,” Stiles said. “ _Beacon Hills First National Bank Closes Three Months After Opening Due To Robbery_ ,” he read from his phone. “Doesn’t say here how…” he scrolled through the article. “…but I don’t think it will take long to find out.”  
“How long?”  
“It’s the internet, Derek,” my brother smirked. “Minutes.”

“You’re right,” Derek told me as we were all packing up to leave. “We need a plan. I should’ve listened to Allison, Lydia, and you.”  
I sighed as I slung my bag onto my shoulder. “I’m on your team, Derek,” I reminded him. “But you have to trust me when I tell you things that are meant to help you.”  
“I’m sorry,” he said sincerely. “I just don’t want anything happening to them.”  
“I know,” I followed him out of the clinic. “I want to find them too.”  
“Let’s look into it together,” he suggested. “The robbery.”  
I couldn’t help but smile at the fact that he was making an effort to be around me after months of minimal talking. “I’ve got a bag full of highlighters.” While Scott and Stiles went home to do their research together, I decided to go to Derek’s loft with him and Isaac. Since Isaac had a long night, we told him to get some rest while we looked into the robbery.  
Research started off slow as it always did, sifting through articles to find information on the layout of the building and how it was broken into was dry. Starting up the research was always the hardest part, because no one wanted to sit and read through articles for hours on end. However, Derek and I always found some way to entertain each other through these long nights whether it be through corny jokes, throwing the highlighters at each other, or just simply talking about things that had nothing to do with what we were reading.  
I had been texting Scott and Stiles with things Derek and I found, but they hadn't responded for half an hour. “I think they fell asleep,” I sighed as I dropped my phone onto Derek’s bed as I sat on it.  
“I don’t blame them,” he yawned as his head fell further back onto the side of the bed he was leaning on as he sat on the ground.  
“Maybe we should call it a night too,” I suggested as I laid back and let my head hit the pillow.  
“I think you should see this first,” Derek said as he made his way over to sit next to me.  
I opened my eyes as he handed me the printed article. I sat up when I saw a photo of my father arresting the culprit. He had the man in handcuffs and was just about to shove him into the police car. He had been there to investigate the robbery.  
“Stiles, dad was there - he arrested the culprit,” I began the voicemail. “He has to know how they got in. When you see him, ask him about it. Call me.”  
When I hung up, I fell back against the pillows again. “Now we can call it a night,” I shut my eyes and felt Derek begin to get off of the bed. I grabbed onto his arm to stop him. “That couch is not comfortable,” I said sleepily. “But this bed is and it’s big enough for the both of us.” Upon Derek’s silence, I opened my eyes and saw the hesitation on his face. “I won’t try anything,” I promised playfully. Derek chuckled before he took me up on my offer and put the covers over us as I fell asleep.

When Stiles returned my call that morning, we arranged to meet at the station. Stiles’s listened to dad’s account of how the robbery was conducted. He made notes so he could mark down the significant places in the bank through blueprints he found online.  
“Giselle,” dad called, stopping me and the boys in our tracks.  
“I’ll be out soon,” I told them before I shut the office door and turned to my dad. “What’s up, dad?”  
“I just wanted to catch up,” he sat on the edge of his desk. “You didn’t come home last night.”  
“Oh yeah,” I waved my hand. “Long study sesh at Allison’s.”  
“So did Derek pick you up from Allison’s, or did he just drop you off?”  
“What?” I forced a laugh. “Where would you even _begin_ to think that happened?”  
“While his car is easy to miss, I take notice when my little girl steps out of another man’s car.”  
 _Busted_. I sighed as I looked to my dad sheepishly. “Look dad, we were just hanging out, I lost track of time, and ended up crashing at his place.”  
Dad chuckled. “It’s okay if he’s your boyfriend, you know I don’t have a say in that at the end of the day.”  
My face fell at his assumption as my heart stopped for a moment. I felt my face heat up at the absurd accusation. We were just friends and the idea of talking to my dad about my love life made me flush even more. “He’s not my boyfriend,” I laughed in disbelief. My dad’s brow rose at my sudden rejection. “He’s not,” I reassured him, calmly this time.  
“Listen,” he stood up from his desk with his hands up defensively. “I know that talking to your old man about this isn’t the most comfortable thing,” he rounded his desk. “But I just want to make sure that…” he began to fidget with the papers on his desk. “…you’re being… _safe_.”  
“Oh dear God,” I muttered as I let my hands cradle my face.  
“I don’t know him well, but he strikes me as the bad boy and boys like that aren’t too keen on protection-”  
“Dad!” I cried. “Stop talking.” As he opened his mouth to speak again, I bolted out of his office and straight to Stiles’s jeep.

That evening, after outlining the procedure Donovan Chance - the bank robber - used to get into the bank including a series of maps, Derek and Scott decided to be the ones to sneak in and get to Erica and Boyd, leaving Stiles, Peter, and I alone in Derek’s loft, awaiting their arrival. The plan was meticulously planned out to a tee - everything from their entrance to their exit was specific. While a part of me did want to come, I knew that this could only be completed by the werewolves. Peter was pessimistic as always when it was just him, Stiles, and I. He told Stiles and I that the members of the alpha pack are stronger than the average alpha, because when they killed their pack members, they got power added to theirs. He also pointed out the twins that Lydia, Allison, and I were talking about in the library are part of the alpha pack as well and they can morph to form one giant alpha.  
“Do you think Erica’s really dead?” Stiles asked openly.  
“Do you think I _really_ care?” Peter replied as he lounged on the couch.  
“I don’t get why a bank though,” Stiles paced between the window that took up an entire wall and the table where I was sat. “Why not chain them up in an underground…lair?”  
“Lair?” Peter scoffed. “They’re werewolves not cliche villains in a cartoon.”  
Ignoring his comment, I looked to Stiles. “Maybe there’s something that draws them there,” I suggested. “Something that makes it more ideal than any other place.”  
“But what?”  
“What are the walls made of?” Peter asked when he sat up, alert on the couch.  
I looked through the various maps of the building that Stiles provided. “It doesn’t say here,” I concluded. “It said somewhere…” I racked my brain as Peter approached Stiles and I. “…it was something like…”  
“Like what!?” Peter barked.  
“Heto…hecto…hecato…”  
“Hecatolite?” Peter named and I nodded before he told us to get Scott and Derek on the phone.  
“Why?” Stiles asked as he dialled Scott’s number.  
“Because Boyd and that girl are going to kill Scott and Derek.”  
“The building’s made of Hecatolite - it scatters moonlight,” Stiles began.  
“Scott, they haven’t shifted in three full moons and the second they feel the moonlight, they won’t be able to control their shifts and they’ll be too strong and blood thirsty to stop!” I relayed what Peter told my brother and I.  
The only response we got were the sounds of growling and thudding, telling us that Boyd and the girl had already laid their eyes on Scott and Derek.  
“Scott! Derek!” I called but I stopped once the line went dead.  
A few minutes after the call ended, Stiles got a call from Scott telling us that Boyd broke out along with Derek’s sister Cora, who happened to be alive. They were strong enough to fight off Derek and Scott long enough for them to escape the bank and unleash their wrath on Beacon Hills. While Scott told Isaac to meet them at _Beacon Hills Preserve_ , Lydia had called Stiles to tell him she found a dead body.  
“Do you think Boyd and Cora did it?” I asked Stiles as we were in the jeep. “Since they’re thirstier for blood than they’ve ever been?”  
“I mean…” Stiles sighed heavily. “…it’s a possibility.”  
“How did she find the body?”  
“I don’t know, she didn’t say.”  
“I guess we’ll ask her once we get there.”  
“We!?” Stiles glanced from the road to me. “No, we are not going to be in the same place-”  
“I can’t help stop Boyd and Cora!”  
“Which is why,” Stiles parked. “You’re going home,” he pointed out the window.  
“What!?”  
“Giselle, please. Boyd and Cora possibly just murdered someone - I can’t do this right now.”  
I rolled my eyes, but got out of the car, knowing he was right. I spent an hour pacing in my room without a single thing to do and getting increasingly frustrated by that fact. If Stiles wouldn’t even bring me to see a dead body, then was I just going to be stuck behind the scenes? I couldn’t help but feel left out, knowing everyone was out there and I was stuck here with no direction on how to help. The second my phone rang, I answered immediately.  
“Giselle.” _Derek_.  
“What’s happening? Stiles forced me to go home and no one is telling me anything!”  
“We need your help.”  
“Me?” a small smile formed on my lips.  
“Can you still shoot a gun?”  
“I-I can, but I don’t have one with me - I always used my dad’s gun for practice.”  
“No need. I’m outside.”  
I rushed out of my house and when I stood on my porch, I saw Derek standing outside of his car in a ripped up, bloody t-shirt. I let out a breath of relief, knowing he hadn’t been completely torn to shreds by Boyd and Cora. I couldn’t help but pull him into a hug which he reciprocated. Hearing the phone cut out after hearing the growls and bangs was devastating and seeing that he was okay was completely different than hearing that he was okay. I settled into his arms comfortably as I felt sound, knowing that he had made it out of there alive. “I’m so glad you’re okay,” I smiled as I pulled back. The somber look on Derek’s face wiped the smile off of mine. “You’re not, are you?”  
He said nothing about it, he only opened the passenger door for me and I climbed in. He told me that Scott got Argent on board with helping trap Boyd and Cora, despite his previous decision to keep him and his daughter out of this world. Derek told me they needed all the help they could get and when he mentioned I knew how to shoot a gun and defend myself, Argent told Derek to call me. Argent decided to contain Boyd and Cora in the school’s boiler room since the door was made of solid steel. He asked Scott, Derek, and Isaac to try and lock onto their scents to try and track them better.

“This is an ultrasonic emitter,” Argent shoved a metal baton into the ground of the woods while he knelt down next to it. He gestured for me to crouch down next to him. “It gives off of frequency that only werewolves can hear.” He pushed the top of the emitter down and it lit up a blue colour momentarily.  
“Cool,” I smirked.  
“Yeah, not really,” Isaac groaned.  
I looked up to him, Scott, and Derek clutching their ears in pain. “So we use these to bring them to the school?” I stood up.   
Argent got up as well and lifted the door of the trunk of his jeep to reveal an abundance of emitters. “It’s your job to get them into the boiler room,” he told the werewolves as he distributed the devices to them. When he slammed his trunk shut, he instructed that I go with him in his car to drop off emitters and eventually get to the school.  
“Derek tells me your father taught you how to shoot,” Argent struck up a conversation with me. The idea of him and Derek having a civil conversation almost made me laugh considering Argent wanted Derek dead at one point. However, when Scott convinced Argent to help us corral Boyd and Cora, he was reluctant at first, saying that he was giving up on the supernatural world. I guess just for tonight, Argent was putting aside his rules and his prejudiced to help Beacon Hills.  
“Yeah,” I nodded as he dropped an emitter out of his open window. “I figured I needed to defend myself since I know about everything now. I want to help.”  
“Are you a good shot?”  
“My dad said I was a natural,” I smirked as I dropped an emitter outside my window. “I practiced all summer.”  
“I’ve got a 45 I could give you. It has a lot of kick back and can do a lot of damage. You only use it unless absolutely necessary.”  
“I understand,” I nodded once we pulled up to the school. “But if I’m not shooting until absolutely necessary,” I began as we got out of the car and met at the trunk of it. “What am I using?”  
Argent held a weapon in his hand. When he snapped his wrist, it extended to double the size it originally was and it looked like what a police baton would if it could collapse and extend. When I thought that was it, until Argent pressed a button allowing the stick to light up and buzz as electrical currents flowed through it, proving it was a taser.  
“Wow,” I stared at the weapon, dumbfounded.  
“Giselle, if you’re going to do this, you need to be confident.”  
“I am,” I nodded and held my hand out. “I can do this.”


	15. Chapter 15

Getting Cora and Boyd into the school as harder than I expected. We almost chased them into the school to start their journey to the boiler room, but once they saw Derek in the hallway before them, they decided to go over the school instead of through it. I knew they would try and get to the other side and continue passing through the town, tearing apart anything that stood in their way. Isaac and I volunteered to run to the back to reroute them into the school. When we got there, we found Cora and Boyd already rushing into the school so all Isaac and I had to do was shut the doors behind them. I began to follow Isaac to the side entrance until something caught my eye.  
I bent down and picked up an arrow that was lying amongst the ground along with others. I inspected it and saw a fleur de lis engraved on it. It had to belong to Allison since she was the only one who shot a bow and arrow since the fleur de lis was a symbol the Argents used.  
“Giselle!” Isaac called to me from the side entrance. I shoved it into the waistband of my jeans and covered it with my shirt before sprinting towards the open door. When I was in, Isaac shut the door behind us and we approached the growling we heard. I saw Argent fighting Cora and while Isaac jumped in to help them, I ran over to help Derek and Scott with Boyd. His t-shirt was torn and his now amber eyes stood out against his deep, dark skin. When he was human, he was intimidating enough as he stood at 6’something and his bulging muscles were enough to make you rethink messing with him. When he shifted, his level of intimidation went up about 50 percent.  
The second Boyd saw me, he reached out to bring his clawed hand down and across me but I jumped back as fast as I could and stuck the baton out in front of his hand. With all my might, I brought the baton up and over my head as I spun around to effectively push his arm away from me. Scott and Derek taunted Boyd and Cora and used themselves as bait to lead them into the boiler room. Argent, Isaac, and I listened as the big door of the boiler room shut once they corralled Boyd and Cora. I let out a breath and leaned against the wall of lockers. “I think it worked.”  
“So do we just wait for the sun to come up?” Isaac asked.  
“That seems like our only option,” Argent answered.  
“Won’t be long now,” I told them after checking my watch. “It’s quarter to six.”  
A few minutes of silence passed before Boyd and Cora’s roars started up again. Without a second thought, I sprinted to the boiler room, worried that they broke out and Scott and Derek had to fend for themselves. When I got to the stairs leading down to the boiler room, I only saw Scott standing outside of the door. “Scott!” I raced down the stairs. “Where’s Derek?” Scott stayed silent. “Scott! Where’s Derek?”  
“He-he went back in. There’s someone else in there with Boyd and Cora!”  
“He went in alone!? We have to go help him!” I cut him off before he could protest. “Scott, the sun is coming up in a few minutes! All we have to do is hold them off - just for a few minutes.”  
Scott agreed and he pulled the door open and slammed it shut behind us. We began to search in the quiet, poorly lit room for Derek, Boyd, and Cora. When we turned the corner, I saw Derek bloodier than before, on his knees, with Cora and Boyd passed out on the ground beside them.  
I rushed over to him and knelt down in front of him. “Are you okay?” I picked his head up.  
He nodded as his eyes fought to stay open. “There’s a teacher,” he panted. “I’ll take care of her.” He opened his eyes to look into mine. “Get them out of here.” I nodded and turned to Scott who had Isaac by his side now. I helped Scott bring Boyd out of the boiler room while Isaac took Cora. After I helped drop Boyd of in the backseat of Derek’s car, I made my way over to Argent’s car and held out the collapsed taser.  
“Why don’t you keep it?” he offered.  
“Really?” a smile began to form on my lips.  
“These too,” he held out a 45 along with a few clips. “They’re silver bullets - the only kind that’ll work on the supernatural.” I looked up from the gun and ammunition now in my hands and gave Argent a look of confusion due to his actions. “Fighting the supernatural is hard when you’re not supernatural yourself.”  
“Thank you,” I smiled before putting them awkwardly in my bag that I retrieved from Derek’s car.  
When I looked to Argent, his gaze was fixated on my shoulder. I saw a claw mark oozing blood through my torn shirt. It was only one claw mark, but it seemed to cause concern for Argent.  
“It’s not deep enough to turn me, is it?” I asked as he disinfected it.  
“No, just a graze,” he confirmed as he pressed some gauze to it that he got out of his first aid kit.  
Hesitantly, I looked to him as an idea came to my head. “Mr. Argent?” he hummed in response. “I know this is a lot to ask and I have a lot to learn, but…” I trailed off as he finished patching me up. “…I was wondering if you could train me. My dad taught me how to defend myself but he didn’t train me for fighting exceptionally strong, supernatural creatures,” I breathed a laugh.  
Argent’s eyes fell to the ground for a moment. “I’m sorry, Giselle,” he sighed. “After everything that happened with my wife, Gerard, and my sister, Allison and I promised to step back from all of this.”  
 _Are you sure?_ I remember Stiles telling me that Argent’s sister, Kate had been murdered by Peter while he was the alpha for setting the Hale house on fire and killing the better part of his family. “I completely understand,” I nodded, although I was discouraged that I lost the only chance I had to learn how to fight the supernatural. “Thank you again.”

“Where the hell have you been?” Stiles questioned the second I got into my room. He waited for me in my room and even covered for me with our dad. “What happened to you?” he pointed to my shoulder.  
“Flesh wound,” I answered as I put my bag down carefully on the ground. “They needed my help. Derek, Isaac, Scott, and Argent.”  
“And you got hurt!”  
“It’s just a graze,” I rolled my eyes. “What are you even doing in here?”  
“The body Lydia found - it wasn’t Boyd and Cora, they didn't do it.”  
My eyebrows pulled together. “Who was it then?”  
“I don’t know but this guy was strangled with a garrotte, had his throat slit, and a hit to the back of his head.”  
“Doesn’t sound very…werewolf-y,” I sat next to him.  
“That’s what I said,” he sighed. “And um…” his tone changed as he looked to his feet.  
“What is it?” I placed a hand on his arm.  
“Heather, they-they found Heather.” I stayed silent, not wanting to say what I thought he was trying to tell me. “She was murdered the same way,” he said in one breath.  
My heart dropped to my stomach at the sight of my brother’s somber expression. “Mischief,” I sighed as I pulled him into a hug. “I’m so sorry.”  
“There was a third,” he quickly changed the topic as he hugged back. “There was this couple - Caitlin and Emily. They were out in the woods tonight, camping. Caitlin said she wanted to make thing special tonight. It was Emily’s first time and then, she went missing and she was found half an hour ago with her head bashed in, throat slit, and a garrotte around her neck.”  
“So there’s a serial killer? What’s the pattern?” I asked when we pulled away from the hug.  
Stiles nodded. “They were all virgins - Heather, the guy Lydia found, and Emily.”  
“How do you know that - about Heather and the guy Lydia found.”  
“The guy had a purity ring and, uh,” Stiles scratched the back of his neck. “At Heather’s party she told me she wanted to…uh…for the first time.”  
“Oh,” I nodded, not wanting to know that. “So this guy has a thing for virgins?”  
“I don’t think they’re just senseless killings,” he shook his head as he leaned his forearms on his knees. “They’re sacrifices.”

That same morning at school, I rushed to get to first period. I fell asleep after talking to Stiles and slept through my alarm. The halls were empty and I heard Ms. Blake’s voice leak from her room into the hallway. As I was about to pass her door, I stopped before it at the sound of Derek’s voice. He told me that Ms. Blake was the teacher who was locked in the boiler room with Boyd and Cora.  
“I was actually going to make sure you were okay.”  
My brows furrowed at the familiar sentence as I inched closer towards the door to get a better listen.  
“Physically or emotionally? Because according to my therapist the latter is up for debate,” Ms. Blake breathed a laugh. “I…I don’t know why I just told you that,” she said quickly.  
As they continued speaking, I heard Ms. Blake promise Derek she wouldn’t say anything about what she saw with Boyd and Cora. When the door opened, I flung myself around the corner and against the wall. I focused on steadying my heartbeat, knowing if Derek heard it, he would know I was eavesdropping.  
“Who are you?” Ms. Blake asked sweetly.  
“I’m Derek,” it was evident in his voice that he was smiling.  
“Jennifer,” she introduced herself and her tone told me the same thing Derek’s did.  
I heard footsteps walking away and I assumed it was Derek considering Ms. Blake always wore heels. Did Derek have a thing for Ms. Blake? She was very pretty and she did seem nice.  
“Miss Stilinski?” Ms. Blake’s voice made me jump.  
“Hi, Ms. Blake,” I panted. I still wasn’t sure if she knew Scott, Isaac, and I were there that night.  
“Shouldn’t you be in class?”  
“Yeah, I was just, um, going to…”  
“I know you were there, Giselle.” I watched as she fidgeted with her hands, it told me that what she saw last night made her scared.  
“Oh,” I sighed. “I was just going to check if you were okay, but I guess Derek beat me to it,” I chuckled, adding in the last part about Derek almost bitterly.  
“Um, yeah,” she hugged herself as she looked over her shoulder and down the empty hall. “You should get to class.”  
“Yep - yeah, on my way!” I declared as I rushed to get to my class.

When lunch was coming to an end and I was getting my book, the twins approached me, standing on either side of me. They landed Isaac in detention by framing him for beating up Ethan. They’ve been trying to get reactions out of Isaac and Scott all day and I guess I was another attempt of getting a reaction that they’ve been deprived of all day.  
“Hey,” one of them - Aiden, I think - said.  
“Hi,” I replied absentmindedly as I rummaged through my locker.  
It only reminded me that I hadn’t seen Stiles all day and I figured that he was investigating the dead body that the cross country team found earlier that day. Scott, Isaac, Stiles, and the twins all saw it. Stiles was adamant on the idea that it wasn’t the alpha pack since the twins looked as confused as they were, but Isaac had his sights set on them ever since they sent him and the girl that saved him to the hospital after he snuck into the bank where Erica and Boyd were.  
“I’m Aiden,” he grinned. “And this is Ethan,” he pointed to his brother.  
Both of them had the same tan skin with brown hair that sat on top of their heads and pointed to the sky. They had physiques that were petite, but their muscles poked through their excessively tight tops. I hummed in response.  
“You got a name?”  
“I don’t think you’d be interested,” I shrugged.  
“Oh believe me, I am,” he leaned his forearm against the locker next to mine. “I can show you how interested I am.”  
I shut my locker and looked up at him. “Well, I can show you how interested I’m _not_ ,” I tried to walk away after I turned away, but Ethan got in my path. “I know we’re playing for the same team, so your pitch shouldn’t be trying to scare me,” I folded my arms. “What you got?”  
“Derek Hale,” he began.   
“Now him - he swings for a different team.”  
“Oh, _I’m_ not interested in him, but I know _you are_.”  
I let out a laugh and leaned against my locker. “Hate to break it to you, but you’ve got the wrong idea.”  
“You reek of his scent,” Aiden told me.  
“And a hint of jealousy,” Ethan added. “It wouldn’t have anything to do with him getting close to the teacher, would it?”  
“It would not,” I replied.  
Before they could interrogate me further, Scott and Isaac appeared behind Aiden and Ethan. Without saying anything, the smirking twins walked away from me.  
“Are you all right?” Scott placed his hand on my arm.  
“Yeah,” I nodded. I was confident in my answer, but seeing Ms. Blake in English later that afternoon left me with a sour taste in my mouth. 

“You have _got_ to teach me how to do that,” I said to Allison as we stood in the hallway with the rest of our class as we marvelled at the fact that Aiden had been caught with his motorbike in the school. Allison hot-wired it and Isaac drove it into the school. With enough taunting from Scott, Aiden rushed out of the English class, and when everyone followed the sound of the engine revving, we saw Aiden at the seat of his motorbike which resulted in a suspension.  
“Can I talk to you?” Allison pulled me aside after class.  
“Of course,” I nodded. “What’s up?” I asked when we were alone.  
“Scott showed me my arrow that you found at school.”  
“I did - was I not supposed to?” I worried.  
“No, no it’s fine…I just would really appreciate it if you kept my dad from knowing I was there. From knowing I helped.”  
“Yeah, no problem. I won’t say anything.” Allison thanked me before waving goodbye as she left the school. I continued to walk through and when I approached the empty hallway before me, I heard growling. I reached into my bag to pull out the taser than Argent had supplied me. I snapped it open with the flick of my wrist. I rounded the corner just in time to see a large, shirtless man throw Scott and Isaac onto the floor.  
I pressed the button on the taser to activate its electric charge. The buzzing that came from the weapon caused the man to turn around and look at me with red eyes. I could only guess that this was Aiden and Ethan in their morphed form. A scar running down the middle of the face was the only cue that this man was a combination of two.  
“Come on, Frankenstein,” I taunted. I knew this was basically a suicide mission, but I couldn’t let my friends be beat up.  
“Giselle, no!” Scott called as the twins charged towards me.  
I landed a hit across their head, but before I could electrocute them they grabbed a hold of my arm and twisted it in a way that made me drop the taser. When it fell to the ground they easily threw me into my pile of friends, allowing them to break my fall. Aiden and Ethan’s wrath came to an abrupt stop along with their growling. Their face looked shameful and in the now quiet hallway, I heard tapping along the tiled floor behind us.  
An older man with a white cane, sunglasses, and dirty blonde hair approached the twins who had now separated. They looked to the man the same way kids who are being scolded look at their parents. The man raised his cane to take off the red cap at the bottom of it to reveal a silver dagger. He flicked the cane towards Aiden and Ethan and the sharp point left a scratch across their faces that healed before my eyes. The man pushed past the twins who followed behind him, but not before glaring at the three of us.  
“Who the hell was that?” Isaac eyes after they passed through the doors of the school.  
“You don’t think that was…”  
“Deucalion,” Scott completed for me.


	16. Chapter 16

My head leaned against the window of Allison’s car as she, Lydia, and I sat in traffic. I felt sick to my stomach and I curled into as much of a ball as the backseat would allow me to. My eyes drooped as a result of a sleepless night, but when my eyes shut, they flew open again. Lydia told Allison and I something about the disappearance of the music teacher and Mr. Harris, but my mind was somewhere else. All I remember from what she said was Deaton telling her and Stiles about a darach - a druid that went down a dark path. We were convinced this was who was committing all the sacrifices. While the pattern between the first three victims Stiles told me about was virginity, the pattern between the music teacher, the guy the cross country team found, and Mr. Harris was that they were all part of the forces at some point. The checklist of being one of the darach’s next three sacrifices was still unknown.  
“Is that whole ‘not let them out of your sight’ thing literal or…” Lydia trailed off.  
“Why?” Allison asked.  
“Because you’re running on fumes,” she pointed out how low we were on gas. Because of last night, the girls and I decided to go to the cross country meet since Scott, Stiles, Boyd, Isaac, and Ethan were all going and tensions were higher than ever.  
“So what if we lose them?” Lydia asked as she skimmed through the textbook on her lap. “We know where they’re headed.”  
“You didn't see what happened last night.”  
“I know who started it,” Lydia muttered.  
“Is that what Aiden told you?” I accused although my tone was monotone.  
Lydia laughed as she turned to me. “Aiden?” she looked to Allison. “Hold on, is that the reason you invited me on this road trip?”  
“So there’s nothing going on between you two?” Allison quizzed.  
“I’m appalled by the insinuation.”  
Allison glanced at me skeptically in the rearview mirror which was a refreshing change from the concerned look she had been giving me the second I saw after last night.

_“Hey,” I knocked on Allison’s door that evening. “Your dad let me in,” I told her as I shut the door behind me.  
“What’s up?” she sat up in bed.  
“Scott said he came to talk to you,” I began hesitantly as I sat next to her on her bed. “About the alpha pack.” Allison nodded. “Did he tell you about tonight? He’s meeting with Deucalion. He’s going to try and talk to him.”  
“He told me,” she sighed heavily.  
“You can’t think that’s a good idea,” I shook my head.  
“Of course it’s not!” she burst out saying. “But Scott doesn’t kill people,” she lowered her voice so her dad wouldn’t hear our topic of conversation.  
“But Deucalion does,” I reminded her. “And something tells me he’s not good with words.”  
“You think he’s going to kill Scott?” Allison’s brows furrowed.  
“Either him or a member of his pack will. Alphas are never alone.”  
“What are you saying?” Allison asked, expectingly.  
“I’m saying…” I reached into my bag and pulled out the gun her father gave me. “…we need to make sure Scott isn’t alone.”_

Lydia’s phone rang and after giving a pathetic lie to my brother about our whereabouts, Stiles told us he knew we were following them, and asked to be put on speakerphone.  
“Scott’s still hurt,” he told all of us.  
“What do you mean still? He’s not healing?” Allison asked.  
“The claw marks are from an alpha, they take longer to heal,” I reminded them.  
“I don’t think it’s that - he’s getting worse,” Stiles said. “He’s bleeding black blood.”  
I pulled my head off of the window and leaned closer to the back of Lydia’s chair. “You need to get him off that bus.”  
“Tell Coach there’s a rest stop a mile ahead,” Allison suggested.  
“I’ve been trying but he won’t listen.”  
“Reason with him.”  
“ _Reason_ with him? Have you _met_ this guy?”  
“Just do it!” I demanded and Lydia took that as a sign that the conversation was over and she hung up.  
Eventually, the bus came to a stop and Allison pulled up behind it as we rushed to Stiles and Scott. We all got to the bathroom and sat Scott down on the ground after stripping him of his jacket. I lifted his shirt that had a significantly large patch of blood and saw three claw marks on Scott’s torso that were surrounded by blackened veins and oozing black blood like Stiles said.  
Once I assessed his injuries, I joined Allison, Stiles, and Lydia’s circle a few feet away from Scott. “It looks really bad, I don’t know why it’s not healing,” I shook my head.  
“It could be psychological,” Lydia pitched. “A physical illness from a psychogenic cause.”  
“It’s all in his head?” I questioned.  
“It seems like it.”  
“It would make sense. He’s not healing himself because of…last night,” Stiles chose his words carefully.  
“Psychalgia,” I put a name to the term.  
“So what do we do?” Allison asked, taking a break from nervously chewing on her thumb nail.  
“Stitch him up,” Lydia said after fishing out an on-the-go sewing kit from her bag.  
Once I told them to get another one of Scott’s shirts from his bag and to stall the bus, I knelt down in front of my best friend. “Stay awake, Scott,” I told him sternly and took his face in my hands.  
He opened his eyes lazily. “I’m tired, Giselle,” he muttered.  
“I know,” I nodded as I threaded the disinfected needle. “But you have to stay awake for me okay?”  
Scott did his best to nod and I began to suture the claw marks. The twins did this to Scott and it was almost impossible to not combust in anger. Like I predicted, Deucalion hadn’t come alone that night. Miraculously, Derek, Isaac, and Boyd showed up as well as they seemed to have the same idea I had pitched to Allison. It was an all-out war between my friends and the alpha pack.  
“Come on, Scott,” my voice was hoarse as I blinked back tears. “Let’s get you dressed and on that bus,” I reached for the shirt that Allison dropped off behind me. When I looked to Scott, his eyes were shut and he wasn’t moving. “Scott, the bus is going to leave, we have to go,” I spoke louder. My insides began to shake as I reached out to shake Scott. “Scott,” I called.  
I leaned over to him to listen to the sounds of him breathing, but I was met with silence. I pulled back as my eyes pooled with tears. I shook Scott with all of my might but he wasn’t responding. I cried out violently as the side of my fist slammed into the wall beside him. My heavy head fell to his bare shoulder as the tears flowed down my face. “Scott,” I whimpered. A sudden gasp of air sent me to launch back from Scott and watch his eyes open.  
“It’s my fault,” he breathed before making eye contact with me. I knew what he was thinking about. It was what we were all thinking about. When Scott saw the sutures I did, he complimented me before I helped him get his new top on. I wrapped his arm around my neck and held him around the waist and carefully got him out of the bathroom. Allison rushed over to me, wearing Scott’s duffle bag and took Scott’s other arm around her shoulder.  
“We still don’t have gas,” Lydia reminded us.  
“So?” Allison replied.  
“So, we’d have to leave the car.”  
“Sounds good to me,” I replied. I saw Stiles rush over to us and I questioned him about why he wasn’t stalling Coach. He led us over to majority of the cross country team crowding around Isaac who was beating the crap out of Ethan.  
“Isaac heard what he did to you and…no one could stop him,” Stiles told Scott.  
“Isaac!” Scott struggled to call, but once he took in a breath and almost roared his name, Isaac stopped mid punch and turned to see Scott. He left Danny to deal with the bloody mess Ethan had become before we all got onto the bus. While we were on the road, Coach had gotten a call that the meet was postponed until tomorrow, so we had pulled up at the Glen Capri motel to stay in for the night.  
“I don’t like this place,” Lydia told Allison and I once we were off of the bus and stood before the motel.  
“I don’t think the people who own this place, like this place,” Allison laughed.  
“It’s only for a night,” I reminded her before heading to our room with Allison.  
Stiles stopped me before I got into the room and pulled me aside. “Scott told me about your little stunt,” he whispered.  
I rolled my tired eyes with a sigh. Although I hadn’t told Stiles what I was going to do when I left last night, I knew he would eventually get the message that I put myself in a dangerous position. “You don’t have to scold me about it, I’m already paying the price,” I muttered. “And that’s why, I’m not in the mood for this.”  
“That’s too bad, isn’t it?” he put his hands on his hips. “Do you know what could’ve happened to you? Do you know what that would do to me and dad?”  
“What am I supposed to do?” I retaliated.  
“Let us handle it!” Stiles’s voice boomed. He took a breath to calm down.  
“I can handle myself and I need the experience to get better.”  
“You’re not an Argent,” I noticed the tears begin to pool in Stiles’s eyes.  
“Well, I’m not going to sit around and read all day.”  
“It’s safer than almost dying!” Stiles huffed. “I know Derek died, but I need you alive.” It only took a second for a look of regret to appear on Stiles’s face.  
“Thanks for the reminder,” I let my brow quirk at him for a moment.  
“Benny, I’m sorry…I know you l-“  
“I didn’t,” I cut him off harshly. “He saved my life more times than I can count and I couldn’t even do it once for him,” I chuckled humourlessly before I got into my room.

_They were outnumbered. Scott and Isaac were brought down by Ennis, the alpha Scott saw at the hospital, Boyd lay on the ground with his own wounds and fatigue holding him down, and Cora was pinned by the throat by Kali’s clawed foot. All eyes were on Derek who stood in the centre of the catastrophe.  
“Kill him,” Deucalion instructed as he stood on the escalator in the abandoned plaza. “And I’ll let everyone else go.”  
As Derek debated between killing Boyd or getting everyone else killed, Kali and Deucalion tried to persuade Derek of the former so he could be on his way to joining Deucalion’s pack.  
A floor above, Allison and I stood in the shadows on opposite ends. A gaping hole allowed us to observe the scene at a safe distance. I looked to Allison who had silently appeared from the shadows as she drew her bow in the direction of the morphed twins. The moment she let it go, the arrow exploded into a burst of light followed by another, then another.  
“Cover your eyes!” Deucalion called as he crouched in his position.  
I watched as Ennis released Scott and Isaac but immediately picked a fight with Scott. As everyone resumed fighting, Derek cut into Scott and Ennis’s fight, deciding Ennis needed to pick on someone his own size. I scanned the area for anyone who looked like they were in serious danger that required me to fire a bullet. I noticed Scott scrambling across the floor, holding onto his torso. He was heading for Ennis and Derek who were getting closer and closer to the gaping hole that went through two floors.  
I aimed the gun, deciding not to make it a deadly shot, I aimed for Ennis’s foot. I took a breath to steady myself and pulled the trigger just before Scott made it to Ennis and Derek’s scrambling feet. Blood sputtered from Ennis’s ankle and I watched in horror as he fell over the edge of the hole and brought Derek along with him. The sickening thud their bodies made below us was enough to drain the blood from my face and bring me to my knees as a member of each pack had been lost.   
Unbeknownst to them, it was because of me. I killed Ennis. I killed Derek._


	17. Chapter 17

When I got into the room, we figured out our sleeping arrangements and showering order. Upon realizing that all of the towels reeked of nicotine, Lydia and I decided to go to the office and get new towels. Allison gave me a look and I knew she was insinuating that I go with our friend. Considering Lydia was finding dead bodies somehow and her uncertainties about the motel, we silently decided we shouldn’t let her go alone anywhere tonight.  
When I left the room to catch up to her as she was a few steps ahead of me, I was stopped by Scott. “Hey,” he spoke softly.  
“Hi. How are you feeling?” I glanced to his torso that was covered by his shirt that had no blood on it.  
“A lot better,” he nodded as he took a step closer to me. I leaned against the wall, but stiffened when I felt Scott’s hand on my hip.  
“Are you sure?” I remarked. “I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”  
“Of course, why wouldn’t I be?”  
“I _did_ kill Derek.”  
I sighed and shook my head. “No you didn’t,” I couldn’t look him in the eye.  
“You missed,” Scott said calmly. “I hit Ennis in the leg, with my claws.” When he stepped closer to me, I realized how dark his eyes were. “Your bullet landed right next to his foot.”  
“A-are you sure?” my tone was meek. When Scott nodded, I felt only a trickle of relief while the rest of me was plagued with the knowledge that Scott would put all of the blame on himself.  
“We’re still friends, right?” his eyes scanned my face.  
“Yeah,” I nodded.  
“Why don’t we become closer friends?” his voice lowered significantly. “We can do that, right? Even though Derek’s gone?”  
I pushed Scott away from me when all of the anger I felt from the past two days had hit a breaking point. “Leave me alone, Scott,” I said to him as he looked confused. On the way to meet Lydia, I couldn’t pinpoint my anger. Was it because Scott said those things after a night like last night? Was it because he was the fifth person to insinuate that Derek and I had something? Was it because Derek's gone?  
“198,” Lydia said when I approached her. When I illustrated the confusion on my face, she pointed behind the owner of motel who sat in front of us at her desk. Once I saw the number hanging behind her, Lydia took my hand and pulled me away roughly with a new set of towels in her hand. “The number of suicides that have happened since this place opened.” In the midst of telling Allison about that number in our room, Lydia’s rantings were cut off by her turning away from us and climbing onto the bed, eyes fixated on the vent. Suddenly, Lydia’s hand flew up to her mouth to muffle a scream. She turned to us teary-eyed, “The couple next door just killed themselves!” she told us before bolting out of our room with Allison and I hot on her trail.  
When we got to the room next door, we found it filled with power tools and white drapes as it was in the middle of being renovated. This made Allison and I sure that whatever Lydia heard had to do with her powers. When Lydia demanded that we leave the motel, we figured there was no point fighting her, but when we got to the empty office, we noticed the number went from 198 to 201.  
“Does that mean there’s been three more suicides?” I pointed at the number.  
“Or three more about to happen,” Lydia prophesied.  
When we met with Stiles to discuss what had happened in that hour, he confirmed that Scott and Boyd were not acting like themselves since they got here. I remembered my interaction with Scott and decided that he didn’t mean what he said. Stiles suggested that since the number went up by three, it had to do with the darach and that three more sacrifices were about to happen. And those sacrifices were going to be Scott, Isaac, and Boyd. As the three of them spoke, I noticed a bible on the nightstand and a piece of paper sticking out from it. I tugged it out and noticed it was a newspaper article. It was about a suicide that occurred in the room we were standing in. “Guys,” I spoke up and they all turned to me.  
Stiles took the newspaper article out of my hand and read through it when I saw another piece of paper sticking out of the bible. It was another article about someone else who had committed suicide in this room and Stiles took this one too before shaking the bible out as about four more fell out of the bible.  
“You know,” Lydia began. “I bet you there’s some articles about that couple next door.”  
We all rushed over to the room next door only to find the door was now locked. Figuring that the owner locked it up, we began to walk away until the sound of a handsaw turning on sent us running back. When we broke into the room, we found Ethan bringing the sharp, spinning blades closer to his torso.  
“No!” Stiles and Allison called as they charged at him and tore it out of his hands and Lydia unplugged it. Before we could catch our breath, we found Ethan’s clawed hands getting ready to tear open his stomach.  
“Ethan, don’t!” I charged at him and took hold of one arm as Allison took hold of the other.  
Ethan squirmed against us which sent us all flying to the ground and Ethan hit the furnace in the room. He lay on the ground and stared at us bewildered before scrambling to his feet and buttoning his shirt. When we followed him out of the room to ask him why he was going to hurt himself, he simply said he didn’t remember. He didn’t even remember how he got into that room.  
Allison, Stiles, Lydia, and I decided to split up and look for Scott, Boyd, and Isaac. Allison and I searched the entire motel for Scott but came up with nothing. When we met with Stiles and Lydia, they told us that Boyd had tried to drown himself, but they figured out that heat was what brought him and Isaac back from their daze. They used a flare from the bus to wake Boyd and Isaac out of their trance-like state and we figured we had to do the same for Scott when we found him, however when we did find him, that didn’t prove to be easy.  
In his hand, he held the last flare as he stood soaking in a puddle of gasoline that spilled across the pavement. “There’s no hope,” he whimpered.  
“What do you mean, Scott?” Allison asked him as she was on the verge of tears. “There’s always hope.”  
“Not for me,” he refuted. “Not for Derek.”  
“Derek was not your fault,” I insisted as my hands shook and a tear escaped my eye. “You know that.”  
“Every time I try to help, someone gets hurt or killed,” he cried.  
“Scott, this isn’t you,” Stiles stepped forward. “This is someone in your head telling you to do this.”  
“What if it’s not? What if doing this is the best thing I can do for everyone else?” Scott went on to compare his and Stiles’s popularity, lacrosse skills, and overall reputation from before he got bitten until now. “We were nobody,” he stressed. “Maybe I should go back to being nobody again.”  
“Scott, listen to me,” Stiles’s voice threatened to shake. “You’re somebody. You’re my best friend, okay? And I need you,” his voice was desperate. “You’re my brother.” Stiles kept inching closer to the gasoline stained ground. “So if you’re going to do this,” he took a step into the gasoline. “Then you’re just going to have to take me with you.” I crouched down, my shaky legs not being able to support me anymore. I watched as my brother took the flare out of my best friend’s hand and launched it as far away from them as possible. It landed just outside the gasoline, but a gust of wind quickly changed that and pushed it towards the gasoline, instantly igniting it.  
Without a second thought, I lunged towards Stiles and Scott to push them out of the gasoline. Allison and Lydia followed my lead and we all landed onto the dry pavement, Lydia on top of Stiles, myself on top of Scott, and Allison right beside Scott. Knowing we were all safe, I let my head fall onto Scott’s soaking chest as I let myself cry for a moment. Cry for all the pain Scott wouldn’t have told us about if we didn’t come here. Cry for almost losing not only him, but Stiles as well. Cry for Derek. When the flames died out, the five of us decided to get some rest in the bus to be as far away from the motel as possible.  
Coach’s yelling woke us up that early morning. “I don’t want to know. I _really_ don’t want to know.” As the rest of the team piled onto the bus, Coach proceeded to tell us that the meet had been cancelled and we were all going home.  
“I’m sorry, Benny,” Stiles spoke from beside me as everyone took their seats. “I didn’t mean to say what I did.”  
“I know,” I nodded. “Let’s just…forget about it.”  
Stiles sent me a heartwarming smile but it quickly fell when Ethan sat in front of us and next to Scott. “I don’t know what happened last night, but you saved my life,” the alpha said.  
“Actually, _we_ saved your life,” Stiles butt in.  
With an eye roll, Ethan continued. “We’re pretty sure that Derek’s still alive.” My ears perked up at this news. “But he killed one of ours,” his tone became threatening. “Which means one of two things can happen. Either he joins our pack and kills his own or Kali goes after him and we kill him. That’s how it works.” That was all Ethan left us with before he took a seat next to Danny at the back of the bus.  
“Hey coach,” Lydia spoke from the seat across the aisle from Stiles and I. “Can I see your whistle?” she didn’t wait for an answer as she stripped him of his whistle. She sat back down and covered the hole that sat on top of the whistle as she blew into it. When she removed her hand, we found wolfsbane plastered to it.  
“So every time coach blew the whistle on the bus, Scott, Isaac, Boyd, and Ethan inhaled it,” I said.  
“They were all poisoned by it,” Allison added.  
“That’s how the darach got into their heads. That’s how he did it,” Stiles pieced together.  
I glanced to Stiles and he looked to me. We both knew how much coach liked to blow his whistle and we couldn’t trust him to not do so on the way back. I whipped to Lydia and ripped the whistle out of her hands as Stiles opened the window next to us. As the bus started moving, I flung the whistle out of the window, leaving it behind.  
“Stilinski!” Coach yelled to me as he tried to save his whistle, but he was too late.


	18. Chapter 18

The second I got off of the bus that early morning, I sprinted in the direction of Derek’s loft. I had been antsy the entire bus ride and although I was closer to the back of the bus, I was the first one off. I heard Scott, Stiles, Allison, and Lydia call to me, but nothing could stop me now that I was on my way. I needed to know if he was alive. I needed to see if he was. If he wasn’t at the loft, Peter had to be and if he knew, he could track Derek’s scent to find him.  
My legs burned along with my lungs, but nothing burned brighter or stronger than the joy in my heart at the possibility that he was alive. My panting echoed in the hallway of the building and when I got to the loft, I carelessly set off the alarm in there. I didn’t care. Because Derek was possibly alive.  
The loft door swung open and there he was. His shirtless torso told me he recovered from the battle wounds. His black hair was tousled by the travesty of bedhead and his pale green eyes showed how tired he was. But they looked better than ever as life gave them a glow and they were staring back into mine.  
“Thank God,” I threw myself into his arms and although he was taken back, he hugged me back.  
My eyes stayed shut as I let the rest of my senses experience him on their own. The slight poking of his perfect beard that almost tickled against my neck. The curves of his muscular arms that surrounded me gave me a sense of protection that no one else did and his torso and chest pressed to mine tight enough for me to feel his heartbeat and it was enough to drain me of any pain I had been feeling these past two days. His scent was made up of the remains of the cologne that he had put on previously that seemed to stick around through anything - a feature women’s perfume didn’t seem to have - and a scent that was uniquely Derek that I couldn’t describe as anything other than _Derek_. Derek was alive and everything I failed to notice about him before engulfed my senses and I thanked fate that I would have more days to appreciate the things about him that I had only just noticed.  
My revelations came to a halt the moment I opened my eyes and found Ms. Blake in Derek’s bed, covered only in the bedsheets I had once slept on. My heart dropped at the realization of what I had just walked in on. I tore my body out of Derek’s hold and I turned to the side to avoid looking at the scene behind Derek again. “Oh-oh my God!” I stuttered. “I-I’m sorry, I-I didn’t even see until I opened my eyes!” I began to laugh uncontrollably upon my discomfort. I felt a slight discomfort in my chest, resembling the one I had when I thought he had died. “My eyes were closed the whole time, I-I didn’t see a-anything!”  
“Giselle, it’s okay,” Derek took a step towards me.  
Something in me told me to move away from him as fast as possible and I found myself not wanting to be around him anymore. “N-no! I should go.” Before he could stop me, I took off down the hallway, mortified that I had just seen Ms. Blake in that situation. When I got outside, I saw the blue Jeep sitting before me with Scott and Stiles waiting in it. My vision was blurry from the tears that appeared due to me being in this awkward situation.  
“Was he in there?” Scott called once he stepped out of the jeep.  
I blinked the tears away before I got close enough for them to notice the tears. “Yeah he is,” I climbed into the backseat. “He’s kind of preoccupied.”  
“Wh-what do you mean?” Stiles glanced to me as Scott got back into the passenger’s seat.  
“He’s busy right now,” I said. “Just drive.”

Focusing in school was difficult. I had been dodging Derek’s calls and texts while avoiding Ms. Blake in the hallways. I hadn’t recovered from what I saw this morning, but it wasn’t the embarrassment. It was the way my heart dropped at the sight of Ms. Blake in Derek’s bed. The bed I slept in. It was the fact that I ran all the way to his loft from school, not being able to wait another minute. It was how right everything felt now that I knew he was back in my world. It was the joy I felt knowing he had never left it. It was the immediate need I felt to distance myself from he and Ms. Blake when I realized we weren’t alone. It was the tears I had when I was coming out of the apartment building. It was why I was avoiding Derek’s calls and texts. The things I thought I was just noticing were things I always noticed, but I was just starting to realize how beautiful they were.  
Seeing Ms. Blake in Derek’s bed was like that scene in Mean Girls where Janice, Damien, and Cady all see Mrs. Norbury in the mall and Janice compares seeing a teacher outside of school to seeing a dog walk on their hind legs. This was kind of like that. Except this dog was standing on its hind legs, juggling with its front ones, and reciting the alphabet backwards. Knowing this dog was naked and in the bed of the man I possibly had feelings for and had absolutely no chance with was watching that dog seduce everyone with its tricks and being too afraid to say anything bad about it, because you know no one would ever believe you.

English was nothing more than awkward glances between Ms. Blake and I. I tried to avoid looking up at all, but when she wrote notes on the board, I usually caught her looking to me when she put the chalk down.  
“Miss Stilinski,” Ms. Blake called over the last bell of the day. “Can I speak to you, please?” I groaned inwardly, but agreed. “About what you saw this morning. Well,” she breathed a laugh. “I never thought I’d find myself in that position-oh God,” she rubbed her forehead at her choice of words. “I mean…” As she tried to fix the mess she thought she created, I found myself evaluating her. Her combination of brown curly hair and deep green eyes were enough to send a pang of jealousy through my heart. Her fair skin was flawless and the crinkles around her eyes and laugh lines she had were endearing along with her imperfect smile. Her sense of style was impeccable and she had a figure that most women her age would die for. Ms. Blake was clearly clumsy - physically and verbally. Her embarrassment at her choice of words just now showed that. Again, it was endearing when she did it. But not when I did it. I got it. I totally got it. Why Derek had a thing for her. She was rare.  
“I won’t say anything,” I cut off her ramblings, wanting this conversation to end as quickly as possible. “I’m really sorry. If I knew you were there, I wouldn’t have just barged in. It was my mistake. Let’s just act like it never happened.”  
“O-okay,” Ms. Blake nodded eagerly and I took my chance to leave.  
I felt beaten down by the evaluation I had just mentally put Ms. Blake through. I don’t know why I did it. I knew it wouldn’t make me feel better, but I did it anyways. It only made what I was feeling for Derek stronger. It told me that everyone was right - Stiles, my dad, Scott, hell, even the twins. They all knew before I did which meant Derek had to have known too.

That night at the hospital had been hectic with a ten-car pile up that got rerouted here and we were waiting on the ER attending as well as the on-call doctor. The hustle and bustle did get my mind off of Derek somewhat, but when I did remember him, all I could see was Ms. Blake behind him.  
“Giselle, try them again!” Melissa called to me.  
I did as I was told and while the attending didn’t respond, the on-call doctor - Dr. Hilliard - told me she’d get there in 10 minutes. Amidst the chaos, Scott got through with two containers of food - one for Melissa and one for me, but before we could dig in, a pair of all-too-familiar faces called for help.  
Ethan had Danny’s arm slung around his shoulder as Danny struggled to breathe. I rushed over with Scott and Melissa. “What did you do?” Scott spat as Melissa and I sat Danny down.  
“I didn’t do anything,” Ethan began as I grabbed a gurney from down the hall. “He said he was having trouble breathing.”  
As Melissa tried to give a diagnosis, Danny hurled himself off of the seat and threw up a white liquid with white chunks and specs of green. Melissa, Scott, and I were baffled at the unusual substance until Ethan whispered its name, “Mistletoe.”  
Melissa and I wheeled Danny into the ER centre.  
“How can we help?” Scott asked.  
“You can’t,” Melissa shook her head. “He has a collapsed lung and his chest cavity is pushing against his heart.”  
“He’s going to die, isn’t he?” Scott’s horror was written all over his face.  
“No, we just have to relieve the pressure,” I replied.  
“Scott, get the tape and you,” Melissa nodded to Ethan. “Cut his shirt open.” Melissa pulled out an empty syringe with a large needle attached to it from the crash cart beside her. “Giselle, get some gloves on,” she spoke quietly. “You can learn a little something.” Once the needle was in Danny’s chest, Melissa held the syringe steady. “Flip that bit on the side,” she instructed and I complied. “Now pull the plunger back slowly - not out, just back.” I grabbed a hold of the plunger and slowly drew it back and heard Danny inhale deeply, before thanking Melissa.  
“No problem,” Melissa beamed.  
“You too, Giselle.”  
I smiled at Danny and waved off his gratitude.  
“What?” Melissa questioned Scott and Ethan who stared at us dumbfounded.  
“You guys were awesome,” Scott spoke.  
“It wasn’t a big deal,” Melissa shook her head.  
Scott and Ethan left when they knew Danny was okay, but came rushing back in upon a car with no driver crashing into the parking lot. “There were moths in the car,” Scott told me as I looked to the silver Mercedes-Benz.  
“Do you think it’s a sacrifice?”  
“It could be…”  
Then I remembered that there were two doctors missing in total. When Stiles and the police showed up, Scott debriefed Stiles as I talked to my dad with Melissa.  
“So both of them were in the car?” Dad asked.  
“No, these were two separate kidnappings,” I clarified.  
“So whose car is this?”  
“Dr. Hilliard’s, the on-call doctor,” Melissa answered. “The attending is the one who never made it in.” When dad asked for a moment with Melissa, I headed over to the boys, asking Scott if he heard anything to which he nodded.  
“Deaton mentioned healers are usually prime candidates for sacrifices,” Stiles said.  
“That still doesn’t explain Danny throwing up mistletoe,” I said. “He’s not a healer and it can’t be coincidence.”  
Before we could figure that out, Stiles asked Scott to listen in on a phone call our dad just got. After a moment, Scott confirmed that the attending’s body was found.

The next morning, I woke up to find Stiles sleeping in the chair in my room while cuddling with his bat. “Mischief,” I groaned as I rubbed my eyes. When he didn’t even stir, I rolled my eyes. “Stiles!” My loud voice sent him scrambling up from his seat and clutching his bat, ready to swing. When he noticed there was no danger, he let out a huge breath and lowered the bat. “What are you doing?”  
“Keeping watch,” he yawned.  
“While you were asleep?” I quirked a brow.  
“Yeah, _minor_ flaw in my plan.”  
“What were you keeping watch for?”  
“The darach.” My brows furrowed and Stiles rushed over to my bed to sit in front of me. “He’s going after healers now and that makes you a possible target.”  
I shook my head. “I’m nowhere near being a doctor, Stiles. You’re over exaggerating.”  
“He could be looking for any kind of healer and Scott told me what you did last night, Benny…it was very healer-y and awesome,” he sang the last word.  
I couldn’t help but chuckle. “Melissa was telling me what to do and there’s about 20 other doctors in that hospital that the darach will probably pick from before he ever even considers me. So thank you, but get out of my room,” I smiled sweetly.  
“One more thing,” Stiles stood up. “The ER attending last night,” he began. “He wasn’t strangled, but he did die of asphyxiation somehow.”  
“Definitely impossible sounding.”  
“Definitely supernatural sounding.”


	19. Chapter 19

At school that day, I caught up with Isaac and Boyd in the hallway. I knew Kali still had yet to come after Derek and I hadn’t heard anything about a plan. “Anything?” I asked them.  
“Kali’s coming tonight,” Isaac told me.  
“We have a plan,” Boyd added. “She won’t see it coming.”  
While they couldn’t tell me what the plan was in fear that the twins would hear and relay the information to Kali, I trusted them and wished them the best of luck.  
I hadn’t spoken to Derek since the day I found out he was alive. He eventually gave up on trying to contact me after a week and while it hurt, I knew it was the best thing. If he found me, he would sense something off with me if he hadn’t already, then it would only be a matter of time before things got awkward.  
My phone buzzed in my hand with a text from Stiles. _Jeep. Now_.  
“He’s taken Deaton,” Stiles told me as we hopped into the car. “He called Scott before he was, to warn him.”  
“How did he know?” I asked as we sped down the road.  
“I don’t know, but I called dad the second Scott left class.”  
“Deaton’s the third healer.” While he was a supernatural encyclopedia, he was also a veterinarian, but I wouldn’t be surprised if his extensive knowledge of the supernatural made him a special target.  
“Melissa told me how the attending suffocated,” I began. “He was suspended by his hands. He had deep cuts in his wrists. When you’re suspended like that for hours, you have to keep pulling yourself up for air, eventually you get too tired and suffocate.”  
“Do you think he’s going to do that with his next victims?”  
“It’s less work for him.”  
We got to the clinic to find dad, a deputy of his, and a distressed Scott there, but no Deaton. Scott led us into the cat clinic away from my dad who told us to go back to school. “We have to tell him,” Scott said once the door was closed behind us.  
My eyes narrowed as Stiles spoke, “You mean _tell him_ tell him, or tell him something else that isn’t telling him what I think you want to tell him.”  
“You know what I mean.”  
“Scott, when you told your mom, she couldn’t look you in the eye for a week.”  
“And she got over it.”  
“And she didn’t find out in the best way,” I added.  
Stiles whipped his head to the side to look at me. “You think we should tell him too?”  
“No!” I refuted but found myself not fully believing my answer. “I-I don’t know.”  
“When I told my mom, it made us closer,” Scott said.  
“Look at him!” Stiles pointed to the window where I saw my dad rubbing his forehead in frustration. “He’s overwhelmed.”  
“Because he has no leads,” I pleaded my case. “Because he doesn’t have the full story.”  
“People are dying in the town he’s supposed to protect and it’s not his fault. He’s going to find out eventually,” Scott said.  
“Is now the best time to tell him?” Stiles sighed.  
“If we don’t tell him, someone else is going to die,” Scott replied.  
“If we tell him, _he_ could die,” Stiles’s eyes were rimmed with tears. “I get that Deaton’s been like a father to you, but this is our _actual_ dad. We can’t lose both of our parents.”  
“You’re right,” I nodded to Stiles, but he shook his head.  
“No I’m not. I’ll tell him.”  
“I’ll help you,” I added.  
“So will I,” Scott replied.  
We got out of the cat clinic to see Mrs. Morrell talking to our father. We recently learned that she was an emissary for the alpha pack which immediately put her on our do not trust list. After pleading for my father to do everything he could to find Deaton, who was supposedly her brother, she approached Scott, Stiles, and I. “No sheriff, deputy, or detective is going to find him,” she spoke to Scott.  
“You don’t have to ask us for help,” he told her.  
“Actually, I’m trying to help you,” she glanced to all of us. “The only way you’re going to find my brother is to use the person who has the ability to seek out the supernatural.”  
As I tried to rack my brain for who it could be, Stiles told us the name of the person we needed to find. Lydia. Stiles, Scott, and I split up to find her at school so we had a greater chance of finding her quicker. On my way around my assigned area of the building, I ran into Cora. The moment she spotted me, her cold hard stare couldn’t help but remind me of the same one Derek wore. Her plump lips, big eyes, and gently arched brows were hard not to admire.  
“Hey,” I greeted her and we began to walk down the hallway. Since she didn’t attend Beacon Hills High, she was here for a reason, and I couldn’t help but ask.  
“Looking for Lydia,” she answered.  
“Oh, me too,” I nodded. “Mind if I come with you?” Cora shrugged and kept walking alongside me. She didn’t say much and that trait combined with her good looks were enough to intimidate me.  
“So,” I spoke after a moment as I scoped out the hallway. “Why are you looking for Lydia?”  
“Derek has a message for her.”  
“Oh,” I nodded. _Not thinking about him almost lasted an hour. A new record_.  
“What’s your deal with him?”  
“What?” my brows pulled together.  
“What’s your deal with my brother?”  
I shook my head as I looked extra hard for Lydia. “Nothing.”  
“Oh…” Cora drawled out as she became rooted in her spot. “You have a thing for him.”  
“What?” my head whipped to her. Since every werewolf seemed to figure out my feelings for Derek before I figured them out for myself, I had to know how they knew and how to get it under control.  
“Your heart skipped a beat when I said his name.”  
I rolled my eyes. “It’s dumb and I know that, so I’ve been trying to forget about him.”  
“That’s why you’ve been avoiding him,” she smirked. “Afraid he’ll hear your heartbeat? Smell your lust for him?” she rolled her eyes at how pathetic my crush was.  
“I think I’m just going to go find Lydia myself,” I told her as nicely as I could.  
Cora grabbed my arm when I tried to walk away. I saw her looking to Aiden who was leaving coach’s office. “Found her.”  
As Lydia opened the door to leave coach’s office as well, she ran into Cora and I. I couldn’t help but feel angry that she was hooking up with one of the many people that wanted our friends dead. Coach’s office had another entrance that led into the boy’s locker room behind us, and while I hoped that she and Aiden hadn’t hooked up on coach’s desk and instead did it in the locker room, I knew my hope was unlikely.  
“What is this?” Lydia questioned as I texted Scott and Stiles that I found Lydia in coach’s office.  
“Derek wanted me to ask you to stop seeing Aiden,” Cora answered. Lydia laughed at the request and Cora huffed. “If I see you with Aiden, I’m going to rip your tongue out of your head.”  
“Sweetheart,” Lydia began, and Cora allowed her distaste for the nickname to show. “My ex-boyfriend was a homicidal lizard. I think I can handle a werewolf.” When Lydia tried to leave, Cora grabbed onto her wrist a little too tight. “Let go,” the redhead demanded with bated breath.  
“Cora…” I began to reach up but Cora’s death stare left me frozen in place.  
“Let her go,” we heard from the alternate entrance to coach’s office. It was Stiles.  
After explaining to Cora and Lydia what Mrs. Morrell told us at the clinic, Stiles had come up with ideas on how to find Deaton’s whereabouts through Lydia. Everything from a spirit board to automatic writing didn’t work. Stiles was getting increasingly annoyed, especially when Lydia used the pencil Stiles gave her for the automatic writing idea to draw a tree. Scott found us and told us that while Danny wasn’t a sacrifice, he was a target. After some snooping from Stiles, he found a report that Danny had written on telluric currents. This intrigued Scott and we all decided to meet at the animal clinic. I told them to go ahead and that I’d meet up with them after I got some things from my locker.  
Just as I was about the leave, I saw the twins approaching me in the empty hallway. “Great,” I muttered before they stopped to surround me.  
“Alone?” Ethan smirked. “This is a first.”  
“Makes this easier for us,” Aiden said before the two of them grabbed onto each my arms.  
“What the hell are you doing!?” I protested as I squirmed against them.  
“We figured that Derek may need some motivation to start joining our pack,” Aiden told me. “So it’s either _you_ or a member of his pack who dies tonight.”  
“Stop,” Ethan said before I could respond. “His scent isn’t as strong on her anymore.”  
“I think I might know someone who’s _covered_ in his scent,” Aiden spat deviously.  
 _Ms. Blake_.


	20. Chapter 20

My eyes opened but squinted straight after at the sudden blaring of light. I sat up as I remembered what happened before I blacked out after being thrown into the walls and lockers of the school. Aiden and Ethan left to find Ms. Blake. I mustered up enough energy to pull my phone out of my bag to call Derek, but it just went straight to voicemail.  
“Derek, now is not the time for payback. Ms. Blake is in trouble - the twins are going to kill her if you don’t kill Isaac or Boyd!” I left a voicemail before calling Isaac to tell him, but he told me he knew, because the twins were holding Ms. Blake at, well, claw-point.  
I rushed to the animal clinic just as Stiles, Cora, and Lydia were leaving. They told me that Isaac and Boyd’s plan didn’t work. They tried to fill the loft with some water and give it an electrical charge so that when Kali stepped into it, she’d be electrocuted. However, they turned the power off in the building which sent Derek and Kali into the fight she’d been waiting for. Scott went to find Dr. Deaton at the bank where they all suspected he was. The darach was using the telluric currents of Beacon Hills to find places to kill the sacrifices. Argent was not only tracking them, but predicting where the next bodies would be found. I told Stiles, Cora, and Lydia about the twins taking Ms. Blake and we rushed to the apartment building and to the control room. Stiles had told Isaac to get Boyd and charge at Ms. Blake to get the twins into the water by the time we turned the electricity on so the plan could still be saved.  
When we got to Derek’s loft, we found Derek kneeling in the shallow pool of water with Boyd’s lifeless body laying in front of him. Ms. Blake was safe and in Isaac’s arms. Cora and I pushed past Stiles and Lydia. Cora dropped to the ground on her knees as she cried out for Boyd. I knelt next to Derek whose hands were covered in blood. Boyd’s blood.  
“Derek,” I whispered as I reached out to put his hands down by his side again.  
Derek looked to me with teary eyes. “Why did you let them take her?”  
“What?” I was taken aback by his question.  
“Y-you let them take her!” Derek yanked his hands away from mine and stood up. “You could’ve handled it - I wouldn’t have had to worry! But they took her and she can’t handle all of this!”  
“I tried calling you!” I cried as I stood up. “But you didn’t answer and when I called Isaac it was too late!”  
Derek reached into his back pocket for his phone and when it wouldn’t turn on due to water damage, he turned away from me and sent the phone straight into the ground, the pool of water splashing up at the intrusion. “They could’ve taken you,” he turned to me.  
“Derek, they changed their minds - it was their decision to take her-”  
“And you let them!”  
“They-they threw me into lockers-”  
“So they threw you into the lockers and you couldn’t get back up to stop them!?”  
“Derek-” I begged.  
“The one time you could’ve helped and you didn’t and now Boyd’s dead!”  
“Derek!” Stiles barked.  
“So this is my fault?” I asked in a low voice. “I killed Boyd?” Derek didn’t get the chance to answer as my brother hauled me away.  
That night was a sleepless night. I stayed up crying quietly for everything. For not being able to do anything. For Boyd dying. For the fight Derek and I had. For the feelings I had for him. For our friendship ending. My sleepless night and Scott and Stiles’s constant need to check up on me made the school day go by much slower than I would have liked.

As the final bell rang, I rushed out of class upon Ms. Blake’s voice calling me back. I almost got out, but she grabbed my name and I knew there was no way I could lie and say I didn’t know she wanted me to stay back.  
When everyone left and it was just us, Ms. Blake ringed her hands, a nervous habit I realized she had. “I know you didn’t just let them take me,” she said.  
“I’m glad you’re okay,” I commented.  
“I’m sure Derek knows that too.” I stayed silent. “And I’m sure he knows you didn’t…Boy-”  
“Like I said,” I cut her off. “I’m glad you’re okay.” I headed towards the door but stopped before I left to apologize.

“Her body was just draped over the school sign…all bloody,” I told Melissa that night at the hospital.  
Scott, Stiles, Lydia, and Allison met at school when Lydia found herself there. She didn’t know how she got there, the way she didn’t know how she got to the pool when she found the body. She called Stiles who brought Scott, and she called Allison to find the body for her. The body was Tara’s. She has been one of my dad’s deputies for as long as I could remember. She always kept Stiles and I entertained when we were waiting for dad at the station - even offering to help us with our homework.  
“Do you think it’s part of the sacrifices?” Melissa asked.  
“It has to be,” I confirmed. “I can’t see why the alpha pack would want her dead. They only want Derek and his pack.”  
“So who are the other sacrifices going to be?”  
“Allison’s working on that. Her father might know more than he’s saying.” Melissa nodded. “I think my father is in danger this time,” I confessed. “Tara was a police officer and so is my dad, so it only makes sense that he would…” I trailed off.  
“Hey,” she put her hand to my arm. “He’s going to be okay.” I could only hope so.  
I followed through the hallway as she was on the hunt for Aiden. Aiden and Ethan were never alone ever since Aiden’s suspension, but Scott had a plan to separate them long enough to talk to Ethan. He wanted to try and figure out if the darach used to be an emissary to one of the alphas former packs. Since the darach was a druid that went down a dark path and druids were often emissaries for packs, almost dying by the alpha of the pack would be enough reason to turn dark.  
Cora couldn’t contain her anger for the alphas - namely the twins for killing Boyd and although I tried to stop her, there was no use. As Isaac and Boyd ran across the water just before we switched the power on, Boyd was still in the water. The electrocution weakened him and made him easier to kill. Aiden and Ethan forced Derek’s claws out and Kali lifted Boyd onto them so he was essentially impaled. “I know I can’t stop you,” I told her once we got to coach’s door, knowing Lydia was distracting Aiden in there. “But at least let me help you, I told her as I extended the taser by my side. After nodding, Cora turned to the frosted glass window of the office door and drew a spiral in it with her claw before grabbing me and entering the boy’s locker room.  
“What does that spiral mean?” I whispered when we hid.  
“Revenge.”  
“Come on, Derek!” Aiden called as he entered the locker room.  
“Aiden, stop!” Lydia demanded.  
“If you want me, I’m right here!”  
Cora jumped out to Aiden when he was in our crosshairs and pinned him to a row of lockers. She let her claws slice through his shirt and skin before Aiden caught her arm and threw her into the wall. I used the taser to hit Aiden in the back of the head, but he only stumbled. He turned to me and launched me into the row of lockers on the other side of the room.  
“Stop it, Aiden!” Lydia cried.  
I watched as he reached for the weight at the end of the room and had his eyes set on Cora. So they threw you into lockers and you couldn’t get up to stop them!? With a newfound fury, I got to my feet, and charged at Aiden as he pulled the weight above his head. Once I got close to him, I activated the electrical charge, and tased Aiden. He fell to the ground as he convulsed momentarily as the weight dropped beside him. The door burst in and Ethan was right at Aiden’s side as Lydia and Stiles went to help Cora up. Scott was by my side, making sure I was okay.  
“Hey!” Ethan barked to his brother. “You can’t do this!”  
“They came at me!”  
“It doesn’t matter!” his brother shut the argument down. “Kali gave Derek until the next full moon, so you can’t touch him or them!”  
Cora groaned from the ground as Ethan pulled Aiden out of the room. Aiden slammed her into the wall pretty hard and her head smashed into it with exceptional impact. I knelt down to see the back of her head bleeding. “She’s not healing,” I told the others. Cora insisted she was fine when she got to her feet. She also voiced her distaste at our attempts to get the alpha pack to leave Beacon Hills. Boyd’s death had hit her hard because they were both members in Derek’s pack even though they had known each other for a few months.  
“Virgins, healers, warriors, philosophers, and guardians,” Stiles listed to me over the phone as he was driving Cora to the loft. “That’s who Argent had listed - those are the sacrifices that have happened and have yet to happen.”  
“Guardians like law enforcement?” I shut my locker.  
“Like dad.”  
“We have to tell him. Everything.”  
“Meet me at the house.”

“You haven’t started?” I quizzed Stiles once I got to his room where he, my frustrated dad, and a bored Cora were.  
“I don’t know how to,” my brother replied. “Look,” he turned to our dad. “You’ve had a lot of cases that you couldn’t figure out. All the murders - Kate Argent and Matt killing all those people and all the murders now. It’s like you’re playing a losing game.”  
“Stiles, I don’t have this kind of time and the last thing I need is a job performance review from my own son.”  
“No dad,” I stepped in. “He means you’re not seeing the whole picture.”  
“You’re not seeing the whole board,” Stiles rephrased as he held a chess board that he pulled off of his desk. “We need to show you the whole board.” With a series of different coloured sticky notes to represent all the supernatural creatures, Stiles placed them on the chess pieces. Dad kept getting confused with who was what, but the three of us pitched in to correct him and get as clear of an understanding as he could.  
“So, Jackson’s the kanima?” dad asked from the opposite side of the board from Stiles and I.  
“He was but Derek and Peter killed him and he was reborn as a werewolf,” I explained.  
“Why was he the kanima?”  
“Because the shape you take reflects who you are,” Stiles answered.  
Dad hummed as he sat up in his seat. “So what shape would an angry and annoyed father take?”  
“Well, that’d be more of an expression. Kind of like the one you’re wearing right now.”  
“I don’t have time for this,” dad began to walk out but I called him back. “No Giselle!” he spun to face me as he pointed a finger at me. “I expect this from your brother, but not from you,” he shook his head. “I’m disappointed in you for going along with this.”  
I stood stunned at his words, but when Stiles asked Cora to shift in front of dad, all she did was collapse onto the floor.

“She has a head trauma,” I told Melissa at the hospital as we wheeled her down the moderately crowded hallway filled with doctors and nurses. If I had to be honest, I was slightly worried about Cora. She should’ve healed from the fight with Aiden - granted, more slowly, but she still should’ve healed. The fact that she passed out told me that something was so wrong that not even her healing could help her.  
“From what?”  
“Alpha twin,” I sighed.  
“How long?”  
“A couple of hours.”  
Melissa looked to me, shocked. “Why would you wait this long?”  
“She’s Derek’s sister - Derek’s younger werewolf sister.”  
“And she’s not healing?” I shook my head in response. “Why not?”  
“I have no idea,” I replied. “Call Derek.”  
I helped Melissa bandage up Cora’s head after she sutured it. We tried to put off the idea of surgery in case she healed without an explanation. She lay asleep in a hospital gown and in the bed of the hospital. While I was there, Stiles called me that the sacrifices were teachers. After reminding me that Tara used to be a middle school teacher, he told me Mr. Westover, the history teacher was taken. There was a recital at the school that Ms. Blake put together to commemorate the losses of the school. If the darach was looking for another teacher, that recital would be a goldmine.  
“I’m on my way,” I hung up before turning to Cora. “Heal, Cora,” I demanded even though she couldn’t hear me.  
I walked over to the door but it opened from the other side to show a panicked and exhausted Derek. It was probably a mixture of Boyd’s death and now Cora not being able to heal. When he saw me, an unrecognizable emotion replaced the look of distress he was wearing before. It wasn't anger, it wasn’t sorrow, but it was something.  
 _Should I say something? Something comforting about Cora? Something evasive? Something real?_ I decided to say nothing. I caught one glimpse of his beautiful eyes before I quietly stepped around him and left.

“Lydia!” Scott, Stiles, and I called outside of the school. She left the recital and wasn’t answering anyone’s calls or texts. As we kept calling, Scott was suddenly brought to his knees as he clutched his ears. “What’s happening?” I asked Stiles.  
“It’s Lydia,” he answered. “She’s screaming.” When Scott regained composure, he prompted me to follow him. When we got to the English room, we found Lydia tied to a chair. With my gun drawn, I found my father standing in front of the scene, pointing his gun at Ms. Blake. _She’s the darach?_  
I watched as Ms. Blake took a hold of her knife that she was planning to use to slit Lydia’s throat and aimed it at my father. Before she could launch it, I aimed and shot her hand which sent the dagger to the ground and blood to pour from the bullet wound. I stepped out from the shadows as I slowly moved towards my dad and stood by his side, leaving the darach to stare down the barrel of both guns.  
Ms. Blake laughed when she saw me as she clutched her hand. “Of course,” she spat. “The one who always wants to help.”  
Scott’s roar interrupted whatever she was going to say. He flew over the desk and landed right in front of Ms. Blake. She was too fast to be caught in Scott’s crosshairs and with a shove to the chest, he was sent flying into a stack of chairs. He lay on the ground as he spat out a mouthful of blood. Ms. Blake’s dark eyes looked to my father and I. “Oh,” she smirked. “This is going to be a real father-daughter bonding moment,” she nodded as she slowly approached us. “If only Stiles were here to make it a family moment.” She looked to the front entrance of the classroom to see Stiles who was about to enter. She shoved her desk towards the door and let it shut. Stiles pushed and shoved against the barricaded door but it was no use. It was just me and dad now. I took a shot at her leg and she fell to the ground. In an instant, she lunged for the knife that flew out of her way and launched it into my father’s shoulder. When he stumbled and fell back, I instinctively took a step in front of him with my gun raised high.  
“There was a girl, years ago,” dad said. “Completely slashed up, beyond recognition. That was you, wasn’t it?”  
“Maybe I should’ve started with philosophers,” Ms. Blake shook her head.  
“Stop moving,” I demanded.  
The smile was back on her face at my words. “Derek told me that losing a pack member is like losing a limb.” Her deceptively sweet smile fell. “I wonder if losing a twin feels the same way.”  
Her eyes glowed an off-white as she rose her hands. I was sent flying back as she pushed against the air. My back slammed into the wall behind us and knocked all the wind out of me while my head bounced off of the ground as I fell sent a ringing in my ears. I heard my dad call my name but it was no use.  
I was already gone.


	21. Chapter 21

A gasp of air ripped through me and sent me sitting up. The unexpected movement made my head spin. I found Scott and Stiles sitting before me with tears in their eyes. When my head’s spinning came to a stop, memories of Ms. Blake, Lydia, Scott, and my father all came rushing back to me. I looked around the room and found no sign of my father. The classroom was dark, empty, and now disheveled.  
“Giselle!” Stiles called before pulling me into his arms.  
“Dad, where’s dad?” I panted.  
Stiles pulled away and looked to me silently. “No,” I shook my head. “She took him?” The boys nodded quietly. “How long ago? He could still be alive.”  
“Only a few minutes,” Scott answered as he pulled his hand away from the back of my head to reveal a wet towel with my blood on it.  
“It doesn’t hurt,” I shook my head.  
“I took your pain.”  
“It’s Ms. Blake then?” the boys nodded. “We have to-“ I stopped short, hating to say it. “We have to go to Derek.”  
“Why?” Stiles glanced between Scott and I.  
“He trusts her and she’s going to make sure he still does.”  
“Derek!” Scott called as we got to his loft. He called Derek to meet us there The hospital had been destroyed by the extreme weather and all patients had to be rerouted to another hospital. Peter was with Cora which made Derek able to come meet us.   
“We know who it is - the darach,” Stiles said as he shut the loft door.  
“Who is it?” he folded his arms.  
The boys stayed silent, hesitant to tell Derek that his girlfriend was the one killing people. “Ms. Blake,” I ripped the bandaid off.  
Derek’s eyebrows pulled together and his eyes narrowed at me. “What?” he spat.  
“Derek, we know it’s not what you want to hear, but-“  
“It’s not true,” he cut off my brother.  
“Not true!?” Stiles quizzed. “She almost strangled Lydia to death because she ‘knew too much’, took our dad-” his finger flickered between me and him. “-and she tried to kill Giselle!”  
Derek’s eyes roamed over me to try and find injuries, but when he took a breath, the blood that stained the hair on the back of my head filled his nose. “No,” he shook his head, but I could tell we were slowly breaking him down.  
“No!?” Stiles approached him and dug into his pocket. “ _This_ is my dad’s badge that _Ms. Blake_ totally destroyed before taking him and-” he pulled me next to him and turned me around. “- _this_ is the open wound that _Ms. Blake_ left _Giselle_ with in an attempt to kill her as she stood in the way of _Ms.Blake_ who was trying to take _our dad_ to _sacrifice him_.” he turned me back around.  
I knew that Derek had fallen for Ms. Blake and trying to convince him with words wasn’t going to work. “Listen to our heartbeats,” I instructed the werewolf.  
“Ms. Blake is the darach,” Scott repeated.  
After a moment of listening, Derek’s eyes fell to the ground but his stony exterior remained to hide the fact that he was falling apart on the inside.  
“Derek!” we heard Ms. Blake call out of the loft door. We silently decided that it was Derek’s decision of whether or not he was going to help us stop Ms. Blake. We hid behind the brick wall that had a gaping hole through it that would’ve separated the living room and the kitchen if it were complete. The loft door swung open. “Derek!” she called again. “Oh thank God.” her heels clicked against the floor before they came to a stop.  
I peeked out from the wall to see Ms. Blake’s arms wrapped around Derek’s neck as his arms snaked around her waist. His eyes stayed locked on mine as the two stood like that for a moment. I couldn’t look away. Because even though she was wrapped around him, he was still impossible to not look at. When they pulled away, I hid behind the corner again.  
“What’s wrong?” Derek asked.  
“Something happened at the recital,” she began with a shaky breath. “You’re going to hear things. Things from Scott and Stiles, but I need you to trust me.”  
“What is it?”  
“You promise you’ll listen to me?”  
“I promise,” Derek spoke softly.  
There was a pause until Ms. Blake spoke again, “They’re already here, aren’t they?” The three of us looked to each other but I silently prompted Scott and Stiles to make their presence known. “So they told you I’m the one taking people?” her voice was soft, almost scared.  
“We told him you’re the one killing people,” Scott spat.  
“Oh yeah,” she began sarcastically. “Kidnapping people and slitting their throats,” she laughed. “Yeah, I probably do it on my lunch hour, that way I can get back to teaching high school English - that makes perfect sense!”  
“Where’s my dad?” Stiles’s voice was anything but threatening.  
“How should I know? Derek, tell me you don’t believe this!”  
“He does,” Scott confirmed.  
“But you’re not going to believe this,” I sauntered around the corner with my hands behind my back. I let all of my senses absorb the look on her face. The way her eyebrows pulled together and her eyes sent a glare that had the potential to kill me. The frustration she felt from seeing me radiated off of her and I caught a glimpse of the fists her hands made before she caught herself. “Where’s my father?” I demanded with folded arms.  
“I don’t know!” her head whipped to Derek. She pleaded for his support, but Derek’s eyes stayed on me. Heartbeat was the word I whispered so low so it was only for his ears.  
“Do you know what happened to Stiles and Giselle’s father?” he questioned while his eyes stayed to mine.  
“No!” she pleaded.  
“Ask her why she almost killed Lydia and Giselle!” Scott almost growled.  
“What!? I don’t know anything about that and Giselle is clearly fine,” she gestured to me.  
“Then what do you know?” Derek spat as he glared at her.  
“I know that these kids are filling your head with lies for whatever misguided reason,” she turned to us. “Ones they can’t prove, by the way.”  
“What if we can?” Scott revealed the jar full of a powder that resembled sand.  
“What is that?”  
“A poison and a cure. Something you can use and can be used against you,” Scott unscrewed the lid.  
“Mistletoe?” she seethed.  
“Bingo,” I smirked and Scott swung the jar in her direction, letting the mistletoe consume her.  
Amongst the clouds the powder made, she thrashed around in it before her innocent, beautiful face was replaced with a slashed one with blue eyes. When the powder faded away, Ms. Blake returned to human. She caught her breath before trying to make a run for it, but Derek grabbed her by the neck. “What are you?” he questioned through gritted teeth.  
“The only person who can save your sister,” she choked out. “Call Peter!” So we did. Peter told us that Cora was getting worse. She was getting weaker, had a fever, and she threw up a black substance mixed with mistletoe. At the news, Derek tightened his grip around Ms. Blake’s neck. “Her life; it’s in my hands!” she cried.  
“Derek,” Scott barked.  
Derek tightened his grip around her neck and raised her up until her feet weren’t on the ground anymore.  
“Derek, stop!” Stiles approached Derek, but stopped when Ms. Blake told us we’d never find our father.  
As much as I hated her and wanted to see Derek rip her to shreds, I knew we needed her to find my dad. “Derek,” I called him calmly. His eyes only flickered to me but he didn’t let go. “Derek!” I cried. Instantly, Derek let go and let her drop to the ground.  
Ms. Blake flipped her head back to move the hair from her face. “That’s right,” she smirked up at Derek. “You need me,” she nodded before her head snapped to us. “All of you.”

All five of us headed to the hospital so Ms. Blake could heal Cora, but Stiles confided in Scott and I in his jeep that even though we told Derek who Ms. Blake really was, she wasn’t bothered by that, as if her plan was still falling into place. Melissa stopped us on the way in and told Scott that there were two ambulances coming and Cora had to be on one of them so she could be transported to another hospital. I led them to Cora’s room but all I found was the pile of black liquid with mistletoe mixed in on the floor, but no Cora or Peter.  
“He would’ve told us if they got transported,” I thought out loud.  
Suddenly, the doors down the hall slammed open and Peter’s body fell to our feet. “We’ve got a big problem,” he told us.  
Through the doors, the morphed twins had their eyes on us and behind them lay Cora’s body. Derek shifted immediately and charged at the twins to tackle them before they retaliated. Scott followed Derek’s lead before Stiles instructed Peter and I to get Cora. I dropped down to my knees next to her and placed my head next to her ear. “She’s still breathing,” I confirmed.  
Peter nodded, “Her heartbeat is weak but it’s still there.”  
“Ethan, Aiden, stop!” Scott demanded as the twins had him pinned up against the wall by his neck as Derek was pulling himself up.  
“All we want is her!” they growled. If it was Cora they were talking about, they wouldn’t have left her body there. They had to have wanted Ms. Blake. When I looked to where she once stood, I saw her in the elevator as she sent Derek an apologetic look right before the elevator doors shut. She was leaving - she was never going to help Cora and she was never going to tell us anything about where my father was. The twins tried to make it to the elevator before it shut and we used this time to get Cora and get away from the twins.  
“Don’t stop!” Derek called as we kept running.  
I noticed Stiles stop and I stopped along with him. I watched him look to his bat and to the door we just passed. “Don’t even think about it,” I warned as I pulled the taser out, knowing he wouldn’t listen to me.   
The twins burst through the door, their sights set on Derek and Scott who were on the other side of the room at the other set of doors that Peter had carried Cora through. Stiles swung the bat at the back of the twins’ head but it only disintegrated. When they roared and began to swing at Stiles, I stepped in and let their clawed hand make their way down to my taser and the two collided before the twins could catch up and I electrocuted their arm, sending them to the ground on their knees. I grabbed Stiles’s hand and ran through the doors that Derek and Scott held open for us.  
“Where’s the big guy?” Peter asked as he set his niece down on the operating table in the OR.  
“Close,” Derek answered as he shut the door and checked to see if the twins were close behind.  
“What about Ms. Blake?” Stiles asked and Scott shook his head. “What do you mean-what does that mean? She’s gone!? Are you kidding me, Scott!?”  
“Quiet,” Derek whispered harshly.  
“Him be quiet!?” I intervened and got in Derek’s face. “Your mass murdering girlfriend is the reason we’re in this position right now! And since we’re in this position, she’s going to kill our dad while we’re busy dealing with the alpha pack that wants her dead!” I spat as a stray tear rolled down my face. Derek looked at me almost remorsefully. “So you don’t get to tell my brother to be quiet right now.”  
“Giselle, please, they’re still out there,” Scott pleaded quietly.  
“And they still want her, right?” Stiles chimed in. “Well, we don’t have her, so now our dad and Cora-“ he glared at Derek. “-are both dead!”  
“Not yet.”  
I couldn’t break eye contact with Derek through Stiles’s angry rant. I hated him. I hated him for dating her. I hated him for not believing us. For not believing me. I hated him for having feelings for her.  
“You can’t help her,” Ms. Blake’s voice was heard.  
My head snapped in the direction of her voice. “Only I can.” All eyes were on her now. “But the alpha pack is here and they want me dead. So I’ll help you, only when I’m out of here and safe.”


	22. Chapter 22

Like clockwork, Derek and I lunged towards Ms. Blake but Scott stopped us. “She was trying to get out!” Derek pointed a finger at her.  
“I was trying to keep from getting killed, you can’t blame me for that!” she quickly defended herself.  
“Then heal her,” I pointed to Cora. “Prove you’re one of the good guys.”  
“Not until I’m safe.”  
Before I could reply, the PA system in the hospital turned on. “M-Mr. Deucalion-oh ex-excuse me, Deucalion requests that you bring the woman calling herself Jennifer Blake to the ER reception. Do this and everyone can leave - you have 10 minutes.” It was Melissa. I looked to Scott whose face displayed the fear was feeling.  
“He’s not going to hurt her,” Ms. Blake sighed.  
“Shut. up.” I demanded.  
“He won’t!” she spat back. “Derek’s not the only one he wants in his pack,” she looked to Scott and we all followed her lead. “Deucalion wants perfection and the rarest alphas in his pack.”  
“A true alpha,” Peter mused. “An alpha who doesn’t have to steal their power. Someone who rises by the sheer force of their own will,” he explained. “Our little Scott,” he marvelled.  
“It doesn’t matter,” Scott shook his head. “We have to get Cora on that ambulance.”  
“Scott, your mom-“  
“My mom,” Scott cut Stiles off. “Told me where was an ambulance 20 minutes out and I don’t think we’ve been here that long.”  
“The twins are still waiting for us - they’re not just going to let us walk out,” Peter pointed out.  
“I’ll distract them,” Scott replied.  
“You mean fight them?” I quirked a brow at him and he nodded.  
“I’ll help you,” Derek promised.  
“I’m sorry,” Ms. Blake interjected. “But I’m not going anywhere without you, Derek.” My eyes narrowed at her as jealousy reared its ugly head.  
“I’d like to go out there with some kind of advantage,” Peter said.  
The five of us looked through the drawers in the room to try and find some sort of weapon to use against the twins. “Epinephrine?” Scott asked.  
I looked over my shoulder to see him holding a syringe with a large needle. “That’s only going to make them…” I trailed off as an idea hit me. I looked over to Peter as a smirk formed on my face. His confused and almost scared face brought me close to laughing, but I kept it together. “…stronger.”  
I grabbed the syringe from Scott and approached Peter. I pulled his v-neck to side. “I’ve wanted to stab you since the day I met you,” I told him.  
“What are you waiting for then?” he asked with a smug smirk, but I could see the amusement in his eyes at my sentence. I sent the needle straight through his skin and into his heart. I pushed the plunger in and before I could even take the syringe out, Peter was calling Scott to follow him out to face the twins.  
Derek brought Cora over his shirt and once the fighting began, he, Stiles, Ms. Blake, and I made our way down the opposite side of the hallway.  
On our way to the basement garage where the last ambulance was said to be waiting, Derek stopped abruptly and we followed his lead. He handed Cora over to Stiles as quietly as he could as I pulled out the gun from my bag and approached the corner. He took a step in front of me and together we jumped out from around the corner but let out a breath of relief when we saw Argent, Allison, and Isaac on the other side.  
“You guys go,” I told the others. “I’ll catch them up and we’ll come up with a plan.”  
“Benny-“  
“Don’t worry,” I shook my head. “When you get to the end of this hall, go through the doors, and make a left,” I gave them directions to where the ambulance would be waiting. Stiles glanced to Derek hesitantly but decided to go, but Derek stayed rooted in his place. “Go, Cora doesn’t have much time.”  
With a sigh, Derek began to make his way down the hall before giving me a longing look. I rolled my eyes as I attributed the look to him not trusting me to hold my own.  
I brought Argent, Allison, and Isaac to another room and Scott met with us as Peter got to the ambulance with Stiles, Derek, Ms. Blake, and Cora. Before we began to explain everything, the power had gone off and Scott got a text from Derek that Kali had killed the paramedic driving the ambulance and went after Derek and Ms. Blake who got stuck in the elevator when the power turned off. “If we turn the power back on, Kali will hear it and she’ll be on them as soon as the doors open,” Scott reasoned.  
“We have to get them out of there. What if we bring their attention to something else?” I asked.  
“How are we going to do that?” Isaac asked. “They came here for Ms. Blake and they’ve seemed to make it clear that they’re not going to leave without her.”  
“I have an idea,” Allison intervened. “What if we make them think they’re getting what they came for?”  
“How do we do that?”  
Allison went on to tell us that she could pose as Ms. Blake and lead the alphas outside where they would be ambushed while the power turned back on so Derek and Ms. Blake could get out.  
“What about Cora?” Isaac reminded her.  
“Stiles told me that the twins passed the ambulance, but they still could be in the area,” Scott said.  
“You and Giselle take my car,” Argent tossed Isaac the keys. “Get Cora and take her to a hospital.”  
“How are you going to lead them out?” Scott asked.  
Allison fell silent at the question, trying to think. “Heels,” I answered for her. “Ms. Blake always wears heels.”  
She and Derek were stuck between floors so if Derek could get her shoes onto one of the floors they were stuck between, Allison to get them and use them to lure the alphas out of the hospital.  
Isaac and I got to Argent’s car that was in the parking lot before laying Allison’s bow on the ground outside of the hospital for her to get to and use against the alphas as she and her dad attacked. Allison video called us and instructed Isaac to drive once he saw the twins pass through the hallway as she set up her phone to point at the hallway.  
“You guys ready?” she asked.  
“Yeah,” we replied.  
“Not nervous, are you?”  
“Not at all,” Isaac replied.  
Allison moved out of the shot as her father spoke to her, “do they look nervous?”  
“Terrified,” she confirmed.  
Isaac and I looked to each other, unamused. “We can still hear you,” I told her.  
“Very clearly!” Isaac added.  
After sending the camera a cheeky smile, she took off running down the hallway and let the heels hit the tiled floor with much force. The second Isaac saw the twins passed the phone, Isaac floored it to the basement garage. Peter opened the doors and put Cora in the back seat of the car before climbing in next to her. I looked out of my window to see Stiles fixated on something on the ambulance door.  
“Stiles! Come on!” I called but he didn’t budge.  
I got out of the car to see what captured his attention. It was a form and his finger was under the words _Signature of Parent or Guardian_. Ms. Blake was after guardians. “She didn’t go after dad because he’s a police officer,” Stiles said. “He’s a parent.”  
“A guardian,” I used the synonym. “Melissa,” I gasped. I ran into the hospital with Stiles hot on my trail. She was the one to turn the power back on so she had to be on the roof. Just as I was about to turn the corner, the elevator opened and in the middle of it lay an unconscious Derek. I skidded to a stop before him as my jaw dropped. I found the escape hatch door of the elevator swinging back and forth on its hinges and I realized Ms. Blake had gotten out through there which means she had to have taken Melissa.  
“Go to the roof,” I pushed Stiles’s chest as I dropped to my knees. “Melissa’s on the roof and Ms. Blake had to have taken her. Scott was looking for her, he’s there. Go!” I demanded as I leaned my head down to Derek’s chest to listen for a heartbeat.  
Stiles sprinted away and I let out a breath of relief at the sound of a heartbeat coming from Derek’s chest. I sat up on my knees and took Derek’s face in my hands. “Derek,” I called as I shook his head back and forth in my hands, his beard pricking the palms of my hands. “Derek!” my volume increased as I spoke through gritted teeth. I took the collar of his henley and shook it, lifting his shoulders and letting his head shake along with his shoulders. I began to slap his face between my hands as I continued calling his name. _He’s a werewolf. He’ll heal._ I raised my right hand over my left shoulder and let the back of it fly down to hit Derek across the face and although it felt good to let some of my anger against him out on him, he was still unconscious. I groaned out in frustration as my fingers wrapped around his collar again. “Derek! I know you’re alive!” I shook him violently.  
“He’s gone-they’re gone!” Stiles panted beside me.  
“What!?” I cried.  
“Jennifer took Melissa and Scott went with Deucalion to-to try and help him stop her and save our parents.”  
It seemed that piece by piece, everything was falling apart and my hands let go of Derek’s shirt to form fists and slam onto the elevator floor beside his head. _He’s a werewolf. He’ll heal._ I raised my fist again and pointed the knuckles in the direction of his face. “Derek!” I cried as my fist came down, but before it could collide with his face, he woke up and caught it.  
When he saw the escape hatch door open and swinging, his startled and confused expression turned sour. “Where is she?” he quizzed.  
Stiles explained everything as we picked Derek up off of the floor. “The cops are going to be here, so you need to go.”  
“Where’s Cora?” he asked.  
“With Isaac and Peter,” I said. “Now, go, we’ll hold the cops off.” Derek gave me one last look before running off to find his sister. “So,” I looked over to Stiles. “What’s our story?”


	23. Chapter 23

“Just perfect,” Stiles groaned as we saw Scott’s dad amongst the other FBI agents. We sat in the chairs at the entrance of the hospital when the police department deputies and the FBI were examining the damage caused by the weather and the supernatural. When Agent McCall spotted us, he headed over to us immediately. He resembled Scott a lot, even though Scott would hate to hear that. They had the same hair colour and hair style, they were both tall, their complexions were one in the same, and Agent McCall’s face was just a glimpse at what Scott’s face would look like after he experienced life the way his parents have.  
“Stilinskis at the centre of this mess, what a shocker,” he spoke as he shoved his hands in his suit pocket, his FBI badge dangling around his neck. “Can you two answer some questions without the usual level of sarcasm?”  
“Only if you ask questions without the usual level of stupid,” Stiles quipped and the response left Agent McCall with a sour taste in his mouth.  
“Where’s your dad, Giselle and why has no one been able to contact him?”  
“I don’t know, I haven't seen him in hours,” I shrugged.  
“Is he drinking again?”  
This is why Stiles, Scott, and I had a problem with him. While he was quick to accuse others of drinking excessively, he was never able to admit his own wrongs with alcohol. He seemed to do this with almost everything in his life - point out others’ faults but never sees them in himself. He was barely a father to Scott and seemed to show up in his life only when it was convenient for him. I saw the hurt this caused Scott first hand, which is why the sight of his father always left a bad taste in my mouth. “Mr. McCall,” I laughed humourlessly.  
“ _Agent_ McCall.”  
“No,” I answered. “He didn’t have a drinking problem like you did.”  
“No, but he did have to slow down.”  
“All right, how about this,” Stiles sat up. “The next time we see him, we’ll give him a Field’s Sobriety Test. We’ll start with the alphabet - all the way from F to U.”  
“Why don’t you tell me what happened?”  
“We were stuck in the elevators the whole time.”  
“Both of you?” Agent McCall cocked a brow at me and I nodded. “Would you two be the ones who put the name on all the doors.  
Stiles and I glanced to each other in confusion. “What name?”  
“Argent.” Although we warned Argent about Ms. Blake coming after him, Allison told us that he had given himself up, but we don’t know why. Stiles, Lydia, and I met at the school that day and Stiles told me where Melissa, Argent, and our dad were. 

“It’s called the nemeton,” Stiles handed me one of Lydia’s drawings of a tree that she had been producing over the past month at school the next day. “I don’t know where it is, but Peter and Derek do.”  
“Stiles,” I got his attention and nodded behind him to Agent McCall who was approaching us.  
“For the love of God,” he cursed before turning to Lydia and I. “I’ll handle him, you two go.”  
I knocked on the loft door hesitantly with Lydia by my side. Derek and I were far from being on good terms and Peter wasn’t the helpful type. Maybe if I brought up the fact that Ms. Blake was getting more powerful with each sacrifice and threatening their lives, they would at least tell us where the nemeton was. When the loft door swung open, Peter’s eyes immediately locked on Lydia’s.  
“You,” she mused.  
“Me,” he replied, clearly never thinking he’d be in the position to face the girl he had controlled to come alive again.  
“You.”  
Peter inhaled deeply. “Me,” he exhaled. “Derek,” he called. “We have some visitors.”  
He stepped aside and I found Cora in Derek’s bed as he sat next to her, holding her hand. She looked paler and the fever seemed to have taken over and left her in a sweat. There was a black substance staining her lips, probably the same one that she threw up at the hospital. “She’s still not better?” I questioned. Derek shook his head as his eyes stayed on his sleeping sister.  
“We need your help,” Lydia said.  
Peter sat down in the chair next to the bed, but on the opposite side of Derek. “We might be able to help,” he replied smugly, giving a concerned glance to his niece.  
“Do you know what the nemeton is?” I asked as I sat down across from Peter.  
He looked to Derek then back to me. “The root cellar.”  
“So you know where it is?” Lydia asked hopefully.  
“Why do you need to know?” Peter folded his arms defensively.  
“Because that’s where Ms. Blake is keeping Melissa, Argent, and my father until she decides to kill them,” I stood up and sauntered over to Peter when he responded with silence. “And she’s going to get stronger and kill your werewolf ass if you don’t tell us where the root cellar is.”  
“Interesting pitch,” Peter stood from his seat and we mirrored each other, arms folded, heads held high, and stood confidently before the other.  
“Where is it?”  
“I don’t know,” he told me smugly.  
My eyes narrowed and as much as I wanted to turn to Derek to force the information out of his uncle, I knew I couldn’t do that. “Do you need something to jog your memory?”  
Peter sat back down. “There’s no memory to job, because it’s gone.”  
I glanced to Lydia who looked as confused as I was. “What do you mean?” she asked.  
Peter glanced to Derek again before looking up at Lydia. “After some memorable experiences, Talia - Derek’s mother and my sister - decided it was too dangerous to go back and proceeded to take the memory of its whereabouts from Derek and I.”  
Part of me didn’t believe him, but when Derek nodded upon my stare, I sighed ominously. “So this has been pointless,” I muttered as I took Lydia’s hand in mine. “Come on.”  
Before we left the loft, I felt a hand on my arm and I found Derek was the one stopping me. I told Lydia to wait for me in her car. “I don’t know what to do.” He sounded utterly defeated. I looked to Cora as Peter brushed the hair back from her sweaty face. “I can save her.”  
“Then do it.”  
He shook his head as he continued to avoid eye contact with me. “It could kill me. If it doesn’t, then I won’t be an alpha anymore.”  
“Kali is still after you,” I folded my arms. “So you die either way,” the sentence left the taste similar to vinegar in my mouth.  
“I need your help.”  
“I can’t help you this, Derek,” I shook my head. “You know that.” I tried to be emotionless because my father was my priority right now and I was still upset with Derek.  
“I need you,” he sighed. But when he said things like that, it took everything in me to decide that I couldn’t let what he said to me about Boyd slide. “I need you to help me work this out.”  
“Either you save Cora and die, or you save Cora, become a beta and Kali kills you, or Cora dies and you fight Kali as an alpha and prolong your death by a few minutes,” I listed. “It’s your choice and I know it’s not easy but time is running out. And I can’t sit here and help you choose how you’re going to die, because I’m trying to prevent my _father_ from dying.”

“A surrogate sacrifice?” I questioned Deaton at the animal clinic that night.  
“We can bring them back, but it’s the only way to find the nemeton,” Deaton replied. “But doing this could draw more supernatural creatures to Beacon Hills. Their sacrifices will add energy back into the nemeton and the energy will draw the supernatural here - enough creatures to fill a beastiary with.”  
Allison, Scott, and Stiles had agreed to being the surrogate sacrifices. Stiles and I decided that he should go since he knew what the nemeton was in the first place. Isaac, Lydia, and I helped the three of them fill the three tubs with cold water and ice cubes. Deaton had gotten the three of them to bring tokens that reminded each of them of their parents. Stiles brought dad’s badge, Scott brought his mom’s watch, and Allison brought a bullet that Argent made himself.  
“Each of you will need someone to hold you down,” Deaton said. “Someone who can pull you back.” When Lydia looked to Allison and began to make her way over, Deaton stopped her, “Lydia, you go with Stiles.” Lydia, Stiles, and I silently questioned Deaton before I joined Scott and Lydia joined Stiles.  
“You better come out alive,” I told my brother as I tried my best to hold it together.  
Stiles pulled me into a tight hug. “I will, Benny,” he whispered.  
We pulled away from each other and went to our somewhat assigned partners. “You too,” I poked Scott in the chest, relaying the same message for him. After a tight hug, Scott looked to Stiles and Allison. With a nod, the three of them slowly entered the tub, starting off by dipping their toes in until Isaac, Lydia, and I were pushing their upper bodies under the water. The low temperature of the water bit at my hands and forearms and I shivered at the feelings that Scott, Stiles, and Allison must be having.   
I watched as Scott’s eyes flew open and glowed their amber colour. My head whipped to Deaton who was standing next to me. “It’s okay,” he nodded. “He won’t fight back, it’s just the werewolf side reacting to it.” Soon, Scott’s eyes shut and I felt his body go limp under my hands and it sent an empty feeling to the pit of my stomach.  
After half an hour, the four of us had a seat around the clinic, Deaton out at the front desk, Lydia in the bottom left corner of the room, Isaac on the opposite side of the room, and I sat between Scott and Stiles’s tubs. Hours passed by and I couldn’t help but look into each tub every five minutes.  
“This isn’t working,” I sprung up from my seat, tired of sitting around and waiting. “The sun has gone down which means our parents could already be dead. And if that’s the case, I don’t want to lose Stiles too,” I complained to Deaton who had entered the room upon my first outburst.  
“If you try to wake him, he could go into shock and die.”  
“It looks like he’s well on his way,” I huffed.  
“This isn’t a quick process, Giselle. We have to be patient.”  
“I can’t wait anymore,” I replied once I sat down and rubbed my tired eyes with the palm of my hands.


	24. Chapter 24

I felt cool water splash over me and the gasps of Scott, Stiles, and Allison. Lydia, Deaton, Isaac, and I stood from our seats and rushed over to each of them with towels.  
“I saw it!” Scott panted once he was out of the tub and wrapped in multiple towels.  
“It’s a tree! Well, it used to be but it’s cut down now!” Stiles shivered. “But it’s still very big!”  
“It was the night we were looking for the body,” Scott said to Stiles.  
“The night you got bitten.”  
“I was there - in the middle of the road, my mom almost hit someone!” Allison added.  
Scott spun to face Allison. “That was me! You almost hit me!” he looked to Deaton, Isaac, Lydia, and I. “We can find it.”  
I said nothing and it seemed that no one else wanted to either. “What?” Allison said.  
“You guys were out for a long time,” Isaac informed them.  
“How long?” Stiles looked to me.  
“16 hours,” I answered.  
“And the full moon rises in four,” Deaton added.  
“I-I have to go back to Deucalion,” Scott decided. “We made a deal - he helps our parents and I help him fight Jennifer.”   
“You can’t be serious,” Stiles protested.  
“Scott, don’t do it,” Allison warned.  
“I don’t think we can beat Jennifer without him.”  
“He trusts you,” Isaac said to Deaton. “Tell him he’s wrong.”  
“I’m not so sure that he is,” Deaton shook his head. “We’re using Deucalion to our advantage - to stop Jennifer and save your parents.”  
“So we’re trusting the guy who calls himself _Death Destroyer of All Worlds_?”  
“No,” I shook my head. “No one said anything about trusting him.”  
The bell to the front door of the clinic rang and we all glanced to each other, wondering who would be here at this hour as Deaton rounded the corner to see who it was. “I’m here to see Lydia and Giselle.” It was one of the twins.  
I looked to Lydia and we approached the doorway with Scott behind us. It was Ethan. “What do you want?” I asked.  
“Your help.”  
Stiles popped in beside me. “With what?”  
“Stopping my brother and Kali from killing Derek.”

When we got to the loft, I saw Derek and Cora up, moving around, and alive. Even though I was still angry with Derek, I was glad things had worked out until this point, mainly because being angry at Derek was exhausting. I hoped that after speaking to him with Lydia and Ethan, things could continue to work out and Derek wouldn’t have to die. “You saved her,” I observed to Derek. “Does that mean you’re…” I trailed off when Derek’s eyes flashed blue instead of red, a colour I hadn’t seen on him before. “It looks good on you,” I complimented. “Lydia and I didn’t come alone.”  
When Ethan made his presence known, I saw the betrayal Derek felt flash across his face. “He’s here to help,” Lydia said.  
“I’m only here to warn you about Kali,” Ethan added. “Just because the lunar eclipse is coming doesn’t mean Kali is going to wait for it to level the playing field.” When the lunar eclipse happened, all the werewolves would be powerless. “She’s coming and my brother’s coming with her.”  
“What do you want me to do?” Derek questioned with folded arms and Peter and Cora behind him.  
“Leave,” I advised.  
“Sounds good enough to me,” Peter shrugged with his hands behind his back. “Derek?”  
“You want me to run?” Derek smirked.  
“No,” Peter replied sarcastically. “I want you to stay here and get slaughtered by an alpha with a foot fetish!” he finished once he had sauntered to Derek’s side. “Yes, I want you to run! Run, gallop, leap your way out of this town. I want you to do it.” He looked over to me then back to his nephew and almost regretfully, before pointing to me. “And so does she.” My eyebrows furrowed at his choice of words.  
“If you’re going to die,” Cora piped up from behind her brother. “Then fine. But do it for something meaningful.”  
“How do you know I’m going to lose?” I couldn’t help but roll my eyes at Derek’s frat boy attitude.  
“We don’t,” Peter answered. “But _she_ does,” he looked to the redhead. “Don’t you, Lydia?” he made his way to her.  
“I don’t know anything,” Lydia turned her head away from him.  
“But you feel something, don’t you?”  
“What do you feel?” Derek asked.  
Lydia’s eyes became glassy. “I feel like I’m standing in a graveyard.”  
I looked to Derek and silently pleaded him to put his pride aside. “Fine,” he caved. Once Derek and Cora packed a bag full of their essentials, Peter and I walked them to the garage and stood outside Derek’s car.  
“I’m glad you’re okay,” I told Cora as we said our goodbyes on the passenger’s side of the jeep.  
“Thanks for saving my head from being smashed in,” she smirked.  
I chuckled. “No problem,” I shook my head.  
“Don’t be afraid to jump in to save your friends,” she advised me. “Derek was telling me about how you want to help. Help wherever you can. You could save a life.”  
“I will,” I nodded.  
Cora surprisingly pulled me into a hug and I returned it. “Go make up with my brother,” she whispered lowly to me. “I know you don’t want to waste your time here with me.” When we pulled away I saw her smirk and I sent her a small smile.  
“I’d like to say goodbye to my niece before the homicidal alpha comes to slaughter all of us,” Peter’s comment from behind me made my smile drop.  
I said goodbye to Cora before I hesitantly made my way to the driver’s side of the jeep to Derek. No matter what I did, nothing worked to stop my heartbeat that resembled a hummingbird’s.  
“I wasn’t trying to put Boyd’s death on you,” Derek spoke first. “I-I didn’t know how to handle it.”  
“I know,” I nodded. “But it still really hurt.”  
“I’m sorry,” he looked at me. “I shouldn’t have even thought that it was your fault. You did your best to help.”  
“Apology accepted,” I fought off the smile that was dying to make itself known to Derek. “I’m sorry for what I said at the hospital.”  
“No,” Derek smirked. “I deserved it.”  
“Yeah…” I drawled out. “…you did.” The both of us shared a laugh and I took in the way his eyes crinkled at the corners and the way he looked down whenever he smiled. I wanted to express how badly I wanted him to not be afraid to smile openly, because it was a sight that, for a moment, calmed the chaos that had transpired inside of me over the past few days. “I’m glad you’re okay,” I told him.  
“I’m glad you stayed alive.” Almost hesitantly, Derek pulled me into a hug. I let my arms circle under his and let my hands spread across his shoulder blades. All the things I had been feeling these past few weeks had started to come to the forefront of my brain. _Should I say something? Insinuate the way I feel now so I won’t have to immediately deal with the consequences?_  
“Derek,” I pulled back and looked up at him.  
“Hmm?” he hummed in response, his brows flicking up for a moment.  
“Nothing,” I shook my head. I couldn’t do it. I had just gotten him back, I couldn’t lose him again. He gave me a look that told me he knew I was lying. “Are you coming back? When all of this blows over?”  
Derek nodded. “I’ll try.”  
“Okay,” I breathed as I pulled myself away from him, his hands brushing against my arms and mine brushing against his torso when we disentangled ourselves. “You should go.”  
Peter helped Cora in and I watched Derek get in. “Call me when you find your father,” he told me through the open window. I nodded as Peter instructed them to stay out of contact until they were far away before he sent them off.  
Derek’s eyes never left mine as he put the jeep in park. His lingering look left mine at the very last second and until the jeep was out of sight, I was watching it. When it was gone, I couldn’t help but feel the smallest bit of regret for not saying anything, but I knew it was for the best.  
“Could you _be_ anymore obvious?” Peter scoffed.

Allison and Isaac picked me up from Derek’s so we could all set out to find our parents. Stiles wasn’t answering any calls or texts which made me increasingly worried as each minute passed without any word from him. When we got to Beacon Hills Preserve and met up with Scott, Isaac decided we couldn’t wait for Stiles any longer, and although it made me uneasy, I knew he was right. We got to the lookout point where Scott told us he’d meet Deucalion.  
“Cutting it a little close, aren’t we, Scott?” a velvety British accent was heard behind us.  
“Um yeah, we got held up,” Scott replied when we faced him. “Where are the others?” Kali and the twins couldn’t still be at the loft?  
“Occupying themselves with greater pursuits,” was Deucalion’s vague answer and something told me that there were varying levels of the trait in whatever he said.  
“So it’s just you and me against her?”  
“I think you’ll be surprised what a good team we make.”  
Scott instructed us to keep trying Stiles and get to the root cellar as he and Deucalion held Ms. Blake off. Isaac and I followed Allison as we ran through the woods in search of the nemeton. “Are you sure this is the right way!?” I called over the rough winds.  
“Yes! Can you catch a scent, Isaac?”  
“No, I can’t-” Isaac paused. “I hear something.” We all stayed silent. “An emitter - one of your dad’s,” he looked to Allison. “Come on!” he took our hands and pulled us along with him until we got to a giant tree stump.  
“How do we get in!?” I called.  
“Over there!” Isaac pointed to the panels that were rooted in the ground that led down into the root cellar. When we got to them, we tore them open, and rushed down the stairs. I immediately saw Argent at the foot of them, a little bloody, but nonetheless alive. When I got to the bottom of the stairs, I found my dad and Melissa to my right, both in the same state as Argent. A sob escaped my mouth as I rushed to my father who was tied to a wooden post like everyone else was. I couldn’t help but kiss his cheek before I began to undo the knots as Isaac did the same to Melissa.  
“Where’s Stiles?” dad asked me.  
“And Scott!” Melissa called.  
“They’re coming, but we need to get out, now,” I replied.  
“Giselle,” my dad said once he was untied. “I’m sorry for what I said,” he shook his head. “I’m so proud of you and Stiles for helping your friends and saving lives. I’m sorry I didn’t believe you two.” I gave him a hug that he could now reciprocate, but our moment was cut short when the ground we were under began to cave in. Isaac, Allison, and I got our parents to our feet and began to head to the stairs but they crumbled before us. All the wooden pillars and support beams that contributed to the roof of the root cellar began to snap under the pressure of the Earth caving in. Before we were completely crushed, Isaac grabbed onto a support beam that held the roof up. However when the lunar eclipse began to take place, Isaac was quickly losing his werewolf strength which resulted in everyone in that root cellar to hold up the roof as long as we could.  
“I don’t know how much longer I can do this!” Isaac called to us.  
Suddenly, in between my dad and I, an aluminum bat propped between the caving roof and ground. Stiles appeared beside me as we let go of the roof. He glanced between me and my dad and I noticed he had some blood running down his head. “I always knew aluminium was better than wood,” dad commented. Stiles lunged forward to give dad a hug that I was caught in the middle of but I didn’t mind a bit. Just before everything caved in, the winds outside had calmed to a breeze.  
“Is it over?” Allison spoke cautiously.  
“I think it’s over,” I smiled and all of us cheered.  
Stiles got a call from Scott to check in on us. When he hung up, he told us Scott was on his way, then proceeded to explain the blood on his head from an accident. Through lots of digging and teamwork, everyone had gotten out safely and until that had happened, I hadn’t processed that Derek had come with Scott.  
“You came back a lot quicker than I thought,” I commented.  
“I heard Lydia scream. I had to come back,” he shrugged.  
“What about Kali?”  
“Jennifer killed her. Lydia told us she was Kali’s emissary.”  
“And Jennifer?”  
“Deucalion killed her.”  
“So, you’re not leaving?” I asked hopefully.  
“Not for a while.” However, a few weeks later, Derek told me he was leaving for South America with Cora. I wasn’t angry though. He told me that’s where Cora spent most of her life after the fire and with everything that Derek had gone through with being alpha, he needed to get away. While I hated to see him leave, I was in no position to stop him.  
“Do you know when you’ll be coming back?” I asked him as we stood outside of his apartment building.  
“Not exactly,” he told me remorsefully.  
“That’s okay,” I assured him. “Whenever you’re ready…” I inhaled deeply as my eyes fell to his chest. “…I’ll be here.” I hadn’t told him about my feelings, but I guess that was the most I could say about the topic without fully giving myself away. Derek pulled me into a tight hug that forced me to stretch up to my tiptoes to wrap my arms around his neck. I took it all in for the last time: how my head fit into the crook of his neck, how his hands splayed across my back while his arms sheltered me, the feeling of his chest against mine and how safe I felt in his embrace. I pulled back and looked up at him, silently praising his facial hair to providing the perfect contrast against his almost grey eyes and pink lips, and the chiselled jawline and nose the universe decided he had to have. “I’m going to miss you,” I confessed sheepishly as I looked to my hands that lay on his chest.  
“I’ll miss you too.” I watched his mouth shape the words that were meant just for me. I felt his hand on the back of my head as he pulled it closer, his lips meeting my forehead halfway and planting a kiss on the skin that grew flowers in me that could only be described as a warm, fuzzy feeling. “Goodbye, Giselle,” Derek’s lips brushed against my forehead as he spoke due to his close proximity. His hand stayed on the back of my head and we almost stayed there like a statue.  
“Goodbye, Derek,” I whispered.  
I tried to catch my breath and compose myself as we pulled away. I couldn’t take my eyes off of him when he reached down to pick up his last bag that sat at his feet. They stayed on him as he tossed the bag into the back seat and slammed the door shut. They lit up as he waved to me one last time, the same way he did when he stood in my driveway that night. They dimmed when he got into his car and sped off down the road to start off a new journey.


	25. Chapter 25

“Stiles!” I cried as I sprinted to his bedroom in the middle of the night. His door was open and dad was holding him as he thrashed around and screamed. Dad tried to whisper comforting things to calm him down as I rushed over and held onto his hands to stop him from squirming in dad’s grasp. “Hey! Hey Mischief!” I called. “It’s okay!” he looked to me with glassy eyes as his screaming began to decrease. “It’s okay,” I promised him in a calmer voice. “It was just a nightmare.”  
Stiles panted as my dad and I let go of him to let him lean against his headboard. He glanced between us and I noticed how much sweat drenched his face. He began to nod, “I’m okay,” he assured us. “It was-it was just a nightmare. I’m sorry,” he whispered his apology as I sat on the floor against the edge of the bed.  
“It’s okay,” dad replied, placing a hand on his shoulder. “Are you okay?”  
“Y-yeah, I’m fine, just got a little spooked.”  
Dad nodded and glanced between us. “Get back to bed, okay?” he told us.  
The both of us nodded and he hesitantly went back to his room. I looked to Stiles to find him looking at me. “This is the second time this week,” I reminded him lowly. “What’s happening?”  
“I don’t know,” Stiles shook his head as he rubbed his tired eyes.  
“You don’t think it has to do with the sacrifice, do you?”  
“Deaton said it would leave a darkness.”  
“We have to talk to him to try and figure out how to…decrease the darkness.”   
Stiles was silent and I took that as my cue to leave, but the second I stood up, he grabbed my arm to stop me. “Can you, uh, can you stay in here for the night?” he almost looked ashamed to be asking me that.  
“Of course,” I nodded and waved him over to the other side of his bed. “Move over.”  
“I, uh, can’t sleep if I’m not in the middle of the bed,” he reminded me.  
“Right,” I sighed. I went to my room to gather my pillows and blankets and returned to Stiles’s room to plop them down onto the chair in his room. “Goodnight Mischief,” I said once I got comfortable.  
“Goodnight Benny.”

My eyes opened at the sound of Stiles’s alarm clock ringing and the sunlight peeking through his blinds. The rest of the night had gone by without anymore nightmares for Stiles which was typical. He would usually only have one nightmare on the nights they would happen and it’s been happening ever since he, Scott, and Allison sacrificed themselves to find their parents. It only made me wonder what the others were experiencing if they were experiencing anything.  
“I couldn’t read the title - it was like all the letters were jumbled,” Stiles told me as he drove us to school. “It was only for a second though and then it was like they fixed themselves.”  
“It has to be because of the sacrifices,” I concluded once he parked.  
“In dreams, you can’t read,” he told me. “I couldn’t read that title.”  
“It was only for a second and then they sorted themselves out, right?” Stiles nodded in response. “You’re not dreaming,” I promised. “You could read the title eventually.”  
“That’s the thing,” he began as we walked to the main entrance of the school. “In my nightmares, I couldn’t remember waking up and-and I couldn’t tell what was a dream and what wasn’t.”  
I grabbed Stiles’s arms and forced him to turn to me and we came to a stop. “You’re not dreaming,” I repeated before looking to the school sign. “What does that say?” I nodded to it.  
Stiles looked over his shoulder at the sign that hung above the school. “Beacon Hills High School,” he read flawlessly.  
“See, you can read, so you’re not dreaming. What if this is happening to Allison and Scott?”  
“I think it already is,” my brother replied before walking away from me and towards Scott.  
I saw him trying to run from his shadow. He rushed down two flights of stairs and looked utterly terrified. I grabbed him just as he was about to trip over his own two feet, “Scott,” I called and his head whipped to me.  
“You all right?” Stiles asked him. Scott panted as he looked between us before nodding. “Well, you don’t look okay.”  
“I’m okay,” he reassured us.  
“No you’re not,” I shook my head and looked to Stiles. “It’s happening to both of you.”  
“You’re seeing things,” Stiles added.  
Scott was perplexed as he looked to Stiles. “How did you know?”  
From behind Stiles, Lydia and Allison approached. “Because it’s happening to all three of you,” the redhead concluded. Allison told us about how she hallucinated her dead Aunt Kate coming back to life again. She was in the elevator of her building on her way to school and she thought she found herself at the morgue of the hospital where she found her Aunt alive and well.  
“We did die and come back to life,” Scott said once we entered the school. “There’s got to be some side effects.”  
“We look out for each other, okay?” Stiles looked to Scott and Allison as the bell rang.  
Before the five of us went off to class, I gave Stiles a hug as a part of me was scared of something happening to him when we were apart. “If anything happens, you call me.”  
“I will,” Stiles promised before letting me go and walking away.  
As Scott began to follow him, I grabbed his arm. “Keep an eye on him,” I told him lowly and he nodded before he went on his way.

In art class, I sat next to Isaac as we sat on the opposite side of the room from Allison and Lydia. Lydia promised that she would keep an eye on Allison while I filled Isaac in. Isaac and I watched Lydia tear off a sheet of paper from Allison’s easel after some discussion.  
“It had to do with something about them dying and coming back to life,” I spoke quietly to the werewolf beside me. “They’ve been hallucinating, Stiles has been having nightmares. We have to look out for them,” I looked to Isaac who was studying Allison. “We don’t know if it’s temporary. I think we should talk to Deaton, ask him how to stop this.”  
“There has to be a way,” Isaac confirmed as we turned back to our individual paintings. “I’ll keep an eye on her,” he promised.  
I glanced at Isaac from the side of my eye. Ever since Isaac teamed up with the Argents, all of us could notice he and Allison got closer. It seemed as though they worked out their differences and were well on their way to becoming something more than friends. I wasn’t going to be the one to say it though.  
“So,” I clipped. “Do you have any…” the speed of my words matched the speed of my long brush strokes. “…information?” I found the right word. “Anything, you know, important?”  
“Like?” Isaac smirked at me.  
“Like, anything,” I shrugged, avoiding his eye contact.  
“Like…Derek?” he whispered his name and no matter the volume it was said in it always made my heart flutter. I heard Isaac breathe a laugh at the sound that only his ears could pick up. “I haven’t heard anything from him for a few days,” he replied.  
Derek was back in Beacon Hills. We had talked briefly when he returned from South America and met at the loft to catch up. Cora hadn’t returned to Beacon Hills and while that decision wouldn’t be the one Derek would’ve made if he had control over the situation, knowing that his sister was alive and safe seemed to be enough for him. We hadn’t talked about the kiss he gave me before he left, but I think that since he didn’t bring it up, it was only a kind gesture for someone he cared about and I tried my best to let it go. He hadn’t responded to any calls or messages and I assumed he was just busy getting into the swing of things in the town, but the amount of time it had been since I last heard from him was worrying.  
“I just wanted to know if he was okay,” I shrugged nonchalantly.  
“Mmhmm,” Isaac hummed with a smirk.  
“Don’t look so smug,” I mirrored his expression. “Because your little crush on Allison doesn’t fall on blind eyes.” I noticed Isaac’s face fall as he turned to me. When I looked at him I found a slight panic in his eyes. “I won’t say anything,” I promised. “Only teasing.” Isaac let a small smile cautiously grace his face, unsure of whether to believe me or not but when I smiled at him, he realized he could trust me with his secret.

When art class was dismissed, I headed to my locker to exchange some books for my next class. When I got to the locker, I found Stiles staring at the lock, but an even more alarming sight was Scott’s red eyes glowing. Derek had told me he had become a true alpha when he broke through the mountain ash barrier that Jennifer had put around herself for protection. While I couldn’t be any prouder of Scott, this was not the time to show off his new look.  
“Scott,” I called in a hush whisper. “Your eyes,” I got in front of him when Stiles looked to our friend.  
“What about them?” he whispered back.  
“They’re starting to glow!” Stiles began to look around the hallway.  
“Right now?”  
“Yes right now, you can’t tell?” I asked and he shook his head.  
“No, I-I can’t control it,” he panted as he held up a hand to shield his eyes.  
“Okay,” Stiles pushed past me to get to Scott. He pulled Scott’s head down. “Come on,” he said to us as I scoured the hallway to find an empty classroom.  
When we got into the room, Scott distanced himself from us as he shed himself of his backpack and jacket. His shift began to increase as I heard him growling and panting. “No, get back get away from me!” he demanded when Stiles and I tried to approach him.  
“Scott, it’s okay!” Stiles assured him.  
“I don’t know what’s going to happen,” he looked to us and I saw his fangs protruding. “Get back!”  
“How did you learn to control your shift?” I asked him. “Whatever you did, do it now!”  
“It-it’s not working,” Scott told me through gritted teeth as he watched his claws sprout from his hands. I watched him ball his hands up into fists and the blood poured out from where his claws pierced his palms. Scott groaned out in pain as he dropped to his knees. Deep red blood oozed down his hands and forearms as he let out a roar. Slowly his fangs retracted and when he opened his eyes, they were back to their normal brown. Scott opened up his hands to show that the claws had disappeared but the blood still remained. As a sweaty, exhausted Scott began to fall, Stiles and I rushed over to hold him up. “Pain makes you human,” he panted.  
“Scott, this isn’t just in our heads,” Stiles spoke. “It’s real,” he nodded. “And it’s starting to get bad for me too.”  
Stiles told Scott about the nightmares he had to scream himself awake and out of. He told him about his uncertainty of what was real and what was a dream. “Lately,” Stiles glanced to me, worry in his eyes. “I can’t read,” he shook his head. “It’s been happening for a few days,” he looked to the ground and away from my shocked expression.  
“Even now?” Scott asked.  
Stiles stood up slowly in the classroom as his eyes darted around, looking at the words on the chalkboard and the posters hung up on the walls. “I can’t read a thing.”

After school, dad had asked Stiles and I to go to the florist and pick up a bouquet of flowers for mom. We were going to visit her tonight and we decided to pick up her favourite - pink roses. I couldn’t help but feel anxious on the car ride over. Stiles hadn’t told me that his inability to read proceeded for as long as it had. When I asked him about it, he simply said he didn’t want to worry me, but I didn’t find that a good reason for his silence. “What if your inability to read has something to do with you expecting it to happen?” I suggested.  
“What do you mean?” Stiles asked as he examined different flowers in the shop.  
“Like, what if you can’t read because you’re expecting yourself not to read?” I said. “Remember when I used to get really bad stomach pains on drives?” Stiles hummed in response. “I noticed they didn't happen when I wasn’t paying attention to the possibility of having a stomach ache. Like when dad made a bad joke and mom would tell him how bad it was but she would laugh anyways,” a smile touched my lips at the memory. “Then, we would point out that she was laughing,” I chuckled slightly. “Anyways, I realized that when I didn’t pay attention to and expect to get a stomach ache, I didn’t get one. So I stopped expecting to get stomach aches whenever I got into a car.” I looked to Stiles. “So what if you just stop expecting not to read?”  
“But what about Scott and Allison?” Stiles asked. “They can’t just stop hallucinating things - the hallucinations just happen.”  
“I think that they need to go to Deaton for that,” I answered. “Maybe if you stop expecting your inability to read, you’ll be able to read, and you’ll be sure that you’re not dreaming. Your nightmares could stop after that, since you said you can’t tell between your dreams and reality.”  
“Here we are,” the little lady smiled as she handed us the bouquet of flowers in a vase.  
“Thank you,” I smiled back as I took the vase out of her hands and Stiles paid her before we left.  
“You know,” Stiles began to dad when we got into his office. “The last time we left her flowers, someone stole them. 100 bucks down the drain,” he sighed.  
I found dad sitting on the floor, surrounded by files and files. “What are you doing?” I asked him.  
Dad finally looked up to his. “Working,” he answered. “And if someone wants flowers that badly, they can have them,” he added as Stiles and I rounded the desk to stand in front of dad.  
Stiles nudged me and gestured to the half a dozen boxes labelled _SHERIFF’S STATION DO NOT REMOVE_ and they were close to overflowing with files and papers. “Dad, what is all this?”  
“I’ve been looking over some old cases in a new illuminated perspective,” he looked up to us. “If you know what I mean.”  
“‘Strange sighting of bipedal lizard man sprinting across freeway’,” Stiles read off of a stray police report.   
“Kanima pile,” dad labelled as he pointed to a stack of papers at our feet.  
“Dad,” Stiles and I bent down to his level. “You’re not going through old, unsolved cases to see if any of them had to do with the supernatural, are you?”  
“I’ll admit, this new information has me…reassessing.” Dad’s response sent a sigh to pour out of Stiles and I. “There are at least 100 cases where I can look at the details and ask myself, if I knew then what I know now-”  
“Are you sure you want to go down that path, dad?” I questioned.  
“Do I have a choice?” dad replied. He then told us about a case he had when he first became sheriff. There was a car accident that left a man and his two daughters dead - one of their bodies to be dragged out by coyotes.  
“You mean dragged and eaten?” Stiles mused as he looked over the case file.  
“We didn’t find the car until three days after the crash. It was in a deep ravine - they drove off of the road. When we found the mother and the remaining daughter, their bodies were covered in bites and slashes.”  
“So you’re thinking a werewolf attack?” I folded my arms.  
“Coyotes scavenge,” Stiles pointed out. “Couldn’t they have left the bites and slashes?”  
“Absolutely, but,” dad leaned forward to point at the page of the file. “Look at what night it occurred.”  
I looked over Stiles’s shoulder to see the note dad made beside the date. “Night of a full moon,” I read.  
“Dad, where are all these going?” Stiles asked.  
“Well…” Dad began hesitantly. “…we should talk about that.”  
“What’s going on?”  
“Agent McCall decided to open a case for impeachment while he’s here,” he sighed ominously. “While there have been indescribable and unsolved attacks and cases in this town, he decided to go to the board.”  
“He’s trying to get you fired?” Stiles questioned.  
“But he can’t do that - how can he do that?” I fired questions.  
“Nothing’s going to happen.”  
“Are you sure about that?” Stiles asked.  
Dad took a moment to pause before letting out a breath, “Not entirely.”

The next day during our lunch period, Stiles, Scott, Lydia, Allison, Isaac, and I sat at our table trying to sort out how to stop Scott, Stiles, and Allison’s hallucinations because they were starting to go too far. With Scott’s inability to control his shift, Stiles’s inability to sleep and read, and Allison’s visions of her dead Aunt almost killed Lydia the other day in the woods, we had to come up with a solution and fast.  
“Hi,” a girl appeared at the end of our table. She had long black hair, a bright smile, and pretty brown eyes. “Sorry, I couldn’t help but overhear what you guys were talking about,” she began. The six of us glanced to each other, partially worried that she heard something she shouldn’t have and partially wondering who she was. “And I think I might actually know what you’re talking about,” she fidgeted with the binders in her hands. “Theres a Tibetan word for it, it’s called bardo,” the girl became increasingly nervous at our silence. “It literally means in between state. The state between life and death.”  
“And what do they call you?” Lydia let her mean girl side kick in.  
“Kira,” Scott answered. The five of us glanced to Scott. “She’s in our history class,” he said as he looked to Stiles.  
“So bardo in Tibetan Buddhism, or Indian?” Lydia questioned.  
“Either I guess,” Kira replied as she eagerly took a seat next to me. “All that stuff you guys were just saying, it happens in bardo. There are different progressive states, some where you hear hallucinations and others where you see them. You can also be visited by deities - wrathful and peaceful.”  
“Wrathful deities,” Isaac mused.  
“Demons,” she replied with a tone too cheery for the word.  
“Demons!” Stiles exclaimed. “Why not?”  
“If there’s different progressive states, what’s the last one?” Allison leaned in closer to Kira who was across from her.  
“Death,” she shrugged. “You die.”  
That evening, we decided to go to Deaton for help. On the way, Scott told me how Stiles wasn’t paying attention in business class and while I found that normal, Scott explained how Stiles was in almost a trance like state. He sat in his seat, just writing in his notebook. When coach got his attention, Stiles thought he was just sleeping until Scott told him otherwise. He told us that he was dreaming of being in a classroom full of deaf people. When he tried to communicate with them, they all signed the exact same thing.  
Upon showing it to Deaton, he was able to decode it, “When is a door, not a door?”  
“When it’s ajar,” Scott answered.  
“So all of this,” I began. “The sleeplessness, the hallucinations, the screaming and nightmares in the middle of the night are all because his subconscious wants to tell him a riddle?” I questioned, flabbergasted.  
“The process they went through was a risky one,” Deaton explained. “It seems to have left the door of your minds open,” he said to Scott and Stiles. “You have to close it as soon as possible.”  
“How?” Scott asked.  
“It’s difficult to answer,” Deaton winced. “All I know is having this opening in your mind is dangerous and you need to close it as soon as possible.”

Scott called me the next evening to tell me that he, Stiles, and my dad went to Mr. Tate’s house, the man whose wife and daughters died in the car accident. He tried to catch a scent of the girl that went missing - Malia - but he couldn’t do it, because it had been so long ago. Scott told me that we should try checking the woods for a possible new werewolf or even anything that would tell us what happened to Malia.  
I told him to come over that night so we could convince Stiles to come help us look through the woods. With dad possibly on the brink of losing his job and not knowing how to close the door in his mind, he had a lot to worry about. Stiles told me that he wanted to try and figure out this case in an attempt to save his job, but when Scott came up with nothing, the possibility of finding out what happened to Malia and what really happened to her sister and mother that caused the car accident, was looking bleak.  
“Hey,” Scott greeted me once I let him into the house. He gave me a hug which I returned. “Stiles told me what my dad is doing,” he began as he pulled away. “I’m not going to let that happened to your dad,” he promised. “I’m trying my hardest to get him to change his mind - to talk to the board to rethink the impeachment.”  
I smiled up at him although I knew this was out of his hands. “Thank you,” I told him anyways before leading him upstairs.  
After I grabbed my flashlight from my room, we went to Stiles who was laying on his bed. “Hey, what’s going on?” he asked.  
“We’re going to go find a body,” I replied.  
“A _dead_ body,” Scott added.

In the midst of looking around the woods, Stiles found an overturned car in the woods. “Why wouldn’t they just tow it out?” Scott asked.  
“Probably too much of a hassle,” I answered.  
“Hey, what’s that?” Stiles reached over to the car. We saw claw marks on the door and when Scott placed his finger tips in the indents and ran them along the slits, we concluded that it had to be a werewolf. “Whoa…” Stiles reached up into the broken window and into the seat. He tugged at something until a baby doll was pulled out of the crevice of the folded seat.  
The three of us stared at the doll and when it spoke into the quiet night, we couldn’t help but jump. “Do you guys see that or is that just me?” Scott asked once we recovered.  
When we looked to where his gaze was fixated, we saw two bright blue eyes glowing in the dark amongst the expanse of the trees. They weren’t normal blue eyes. These ones glowed. Like Derek’s did.  
“It’s the werewolf,” I concluded.  
And before anyone could stop him, Scott took off to follow it.


	26. Chapter 26

The next day, we told Allison about what we found. While we found the car from the car accident, we also found Malia’s den where she was keeping her jacket. Stiles said she was wearing it in a photo he saw in Mr. Tate’s house. Scott told us that when he tracked the werewolf down, it actually turned out to be a werecoyote. Stiles hypothesized that maybe Malia lost control in the car which caught her mom off guard and sent the car into the ravine. When she realized that her sister and mom weren’t alive, she probably shifted into a full coyote and ran off into the woods, never to return.  
“Here’s where we found the den,” Stiles showed Allison the map.  
“Coyotes tend to walk down fixed trails,” she noted before looking to Scott. “I think you’re right though, about her not going back to her den. Coyotes don’t like wolves and they’re really smart - if they don’t want to be heard, they walk on their toes.”  
“They tiptoe?” I raised a brow.  
“They tiptoe,” she confirmed.  
When the bell rang, the both of us said goodbye to the boys and headed off down the hall to art class. We discussed Malia’s current state of being a full coyote. The both of us decided that she had to switch back to human and the only way to do that was to be taught. I suggested that we ask Derek since his mother was the only werewolf I’ve ever heard of who could shift between human and full wolf. Considering she had passed, I assumed that she taught Derek how to do it.  
“What about Peter?” Allison suggested when we came to the possibility that Derek’s mother may not have taught him the trick.  
I let out a heavy sigh with a hint of an eye roll. “He’s going to take some convincing, but I guess we could give it a shot.”  
“Have you heard anything from them?” Allison asked once we stepped into the classroom.  
“No,” I shook my head. “I haven't seen Derek for a couple of weeks now and Isaac said he hadn’t heard anything from him.”  
“Scott told me he tried to call him but he didn’t respond.”  
“You don’t think anything happened, do you?” my brows pulled together.  
“He leaves,” she placed her hand on my arm. “Maybe he just left again.”  
“Maybe,” I replied, unsurely. With a small smile, Allison headed over to the other side of the room to her seat before I sat down next to Isaac.

During lunch, Malia came to the school and almost attacked Kira in the locker room. She was on the way to bring Scott and Stiles their bags after the two of them left abruptly in the middle of class. Luckily, Scott was there just in time to scare Malia off.  
“Scott,” Stiles called as he picked up his bag from the locker room floor. “I think I know what she was looking for.” In his hands, he had the baby doll we found at the car wreck.  
“You took the doll?” I questioned.  
“I figured Scott could use it to get a scent on Malia to track her.”  
“Where did you get that?” we heard at the doorway over the police talking to witnesses. We found Mr. Tate. He was an older man with some salt and pepper hair and he looked worn out. Who could blame him though? “Where did you find this!?” he yanked the toy out of Stiles’s hands. “It belonged to my daughter,” he whispered.  
“Excuse me,” my dad stepped in in front of us. “Listen Mr. Tate,” he began. “I don’t know how you heard about this - if you have your own police scanner, or what - but you can’t be here,” he told the man as calmly as possible. On the way of escorting Mr. Tate out, dad discovered that he had a gun in his pocket which resulted in him being escorted immediately.

The three of us gathered Isaac and went to Deaton’s to ask him for help. He provided us with a tranquilizer and the plan was to sedate Malia and get her somewhere where they could help her shift back to human. When no one could reach Derek, they tried to contact Peter who wasn’t responding either, and the last resort was the twins. Lydia had thought that Jennifer killed them along with Kali, but they were only severely hurt. They healed and while they weren’t alphas anymore, they still have the knowledge that alphas do. Scott told us that Peter and Deucalion were able to make Scott shift only using their voices. Since Scott was afraid to shift, he decided to get some help from the twins to teach him how to do what Peter and Deucalion did to him. Scott was afraid to shift because the door in his mind was still open and there was no guarantee that he would be able to shift back to human.  
While Scott and Stiles went to get Lydia - the only person who knew where Aiden was - Isaac grabbed the tranquilizers and went to fill Allison in on the plan. I found myself alone with Deaton in the animal clinic.  
“Is there something you need, Giselle?” Deaton asked me.  
“Actually, yeah,” I sighed. “I need your help finding Derek.”  
“I’m not sure why I would know where he would be.”  
“He was headed to South America, he took some time in North America to spend with Cora before bringing her down South,” I began. “He came back for a few days and then he disappeared again,” I leaned my hands on the metal table. “Derek wouldn’t leave and not contact any of us if he willingly left. Not again.” I looked up to the veterinarian. “I need you to tell me of all the hunters you know in North and South America.”  
“When was the last time you saw him?”  
“A couple of weeks ago.”

_“Ugh, it’s late,” I groaned as I threw my head back against the leather couch. “I should get going,” I sat up.  
“You can always crash here, you know?” Derek offered.  
“I can’t,” I replied regretfully. “I have an early morning at the hospital tomorrow and I don’t think I’d make it in time from here,” I stood up and slung my bag over my shoulder. The both of us had just finished catching up about Derek’s travels around America. He told me that all was well with Cora and that she even told him to say hi to me for her. It was unexpected but sweet nonetheless.  
“All right,” Derek walked me to the door. “Do you need a ride?”  
“No, Stiles is waiting downstairs,” I replied. “Thank you though.”  
“No problem. I guess we’ll see each other later then,” he smiled down at me once we stopped at the door.  
“I guess so,” I nodded. I noticed that indescribable look in his eyes that he had been giving me all night. I couldn’t pinpoint what it was trying to convey, but as far as I could tell, it wasn’t a negative emotion he was feeling that his eyes were telling on him for feeling. Without another word, the both of us found our way into each other’s embrace. “I’m glad you’re back, Derek,” I whispered to him.  
“Me too,” his grip on me tightened only slightly.  
Eventually we pulled away and Derek slid the loft door open for me. We wished each other a goodnight before I made my way to the elevator. Once I got off on the lobby floor, I made my way out of the building, pausing to hold the door open for an older woman who was about my height with a short haircut, indentations of wrinkles on her skin, and a small smile. She had two other men behind her who looked slightly younger and were definitely not people you wanted to pick a fight with.  
“Thank you, mija,” the lady had a thick Spanish accent.  
“No problem,” I smiled at her once she and her men walked through the door._

“You ran into some people?” Deaton clarified.  
“Yeah,” I nodded. “A woman and two men.”  
When Deaton asked, I described them in as much detail as I could. One of the men was stalky while the other was the opposite. They had black hair with facial hair to match and a mean glare that would cause anyone to cower under it. It was just an inference that those men were Spanish like the woman was.  
“When did you know he was missing?” Deaton raised a brow.  
“He didn’t answer my calls or messages the next day and the day after that, but I visited his loft before the week ended - three weeks ago - I knew he was taken.”

_My heart thudded in my ears and I felt my hands shake. I didn’t care. I had to do it. I felt like my heart was going to escape through my throat and my stomach was whirling around like a washing machine. My legs could barely hold me as they quivered in anticipation and fear. I was going to tell Derek how I felt. Him being back had rejuvenated the intensity of my feelings for him and I knew that he had to have felt something too. The look in his eyes had to be one of admiration and the kiss he left me with couldn’t have been a simple, kind gesture. All of these things had to mean something. After much debate, I told myself I would be honest with him. Part of me believed he was onto me - how couldn’t he be? While the simple sound of his name made my heart skip a beat, I couldn’t imagine the train wreck my heartbeat sounded like when I was around him and talking to him.  
I held out my shaky hand to press the number of the floor Derek was on. Hearing the ding of the door as it closed made me feel nauseous. I almost couldn’t handle the feelings this decision riddled me with and while the idea of just turning around and going home made it ease, I knew I would regret it.  
“For the love of God,” I muttered to myself. “Just pull yourself together.”  
I didn’t know if there would be a next time to tell Derek what I was feeling. We had too many close encounters with death and I couldn’t wait for a better time. There wasn’t one. Everything had just returned to normal - Jennifer was dead, the alpha pack wasn’t a problem anymore, and my biggest worry was the biology test I had coming up.  
When the door dinged open, I felt my stomach clench. “Oh dear God,” I breathed as I forced myself out of that elevator. The door to Derek’s loft was a big, rustic, heavy door and looking at it, I couldn’t help but feel intimidated. Not by what it was, but what was behind it.  
I just needed to stop thinking and do it. My hands stayed glued to my sides as that small voice in the back of my head told me to turn around and let things stay the same. But why would I let things stay the same if I could make everything better? I took a deep breath and calmed my thoughts. “Just shut up and knock,” I willed myself quietly.  
Before I could stop myself, my hand flew up and knocked on the door. While everyone decided to barge into his loft, I had the common courtesy to knock. “Derek,” I spoke. “It’s Giselle. I need to talk to you.” I let my hand lay flat against the cool door as the nauseous feeling in my stomach intensified at the thought of looking him in the eye as I told him all of this. “Actually,” I spoke quickly. “Why don’t you just…stay in there and I’ll stay out here? Yeah, that seems like a good idea,” I muttered the last part to myself.  
“Where do I start?” I breathed a laugh as I tapped my shaky fingers nervously against the door. “Well,” my heart jumped in my chest, daring me to express everything I was feeling for Derek. The logical part of me told me to do it in a way that wouldn’t scare Derek off. “I just needed to tell you that-no,” I cut myself off. I paced in front of the door as I rubbed my head. “Okay,” I stopped pacing. “When you saved me that night, I didn’t know that I’d be here-no,” I cut myself off again. My surplus of emotions made it so much harder to express my emotions adequately without sounding too much like a hormonal teenager. Should I just rip off all the sappy things Meredith Grey has ever said about Derek Shepherd? It would be easy considering their names are the same and Meredith said everything so perfectly. But it wasn’t us. That was Meredith and Derek. But this is Derek and I.  
“It took me a long time to get here,” I began. “To know that I wanted you,” I clarified then winced right after, knowing that’s what Meredith had said about Derek. “And I don’t have a problem with telling you that I want you because I know you know that I do. You probably knew it before I did,” I breathed a laugh as I ringed my shaky hands. “Everyone knew it, so you had to have known,” I stopped in front of his door. “And I think the reason that you didn’t say anything about the way my heart speeds up around you and the way that it skips a beat when you look at me is because yours does the same thing when you’re around me.  
“Maybe I’m reading things wrong,” I shook my head.“And maybe I’m just being a crazy, teenage girl right now, but they had to have meant something,” I let my head fall against the door, my palm pressed against the surface as well next to my head. “I don’t think that friends kiss each other on the forehead the way you kissed me,” I felt my throat begin to close up, but I swallowed the feeling away and continued. “I don’t know what that look in your eyes is when we look at each other, but I know it’s not the way that friends look at each other. And I know that friends don't make you feel the way that you make me feel.  
“Derek, I know that this is a total shot in the dark and I’m not making sense right now, but I need you to know that I feel the same way too. I know it took me longer than it should’ve to realize it and even longer to come to terms with it, but I’m here now and I’m not afraid to say these things. Not anymore.” I felt my closed eyes fill with tears but I didn’t care. “I always thought you were so beautiful,” I smiled as the image of his face faded into my head. “And I’ve always wanted to be beautiful to you.” I sighed, feeling content with what I had said. “And I’m telling you now, because I don’t think there’s ever going to be a better chance than now and I don’t want to wait until one of us is dying to tell you how I feel. Derek,” I whispered his name. “I’m in love with you.”   
I let my eyes slowly open before I peeled myself off of the door. “Th-that’s it,” I laughed nervously as I dried my eyes with my sleeve. “Y-you can come out now,” I told him. When the door didn’t move and there was no sound coming from the loft, I stepped closer to the door again. “Derek,” I called.   
Suddenly, it hit me.   
“Oh God,” I shut my eyes tight, cursing myself out for what I just did. I was wrong and he didn’t feel that way about me. “I thought you-and I thought we-oh my God. I’m-I’m sorry,” I knocked on the door. “I know that now this is awkward and-and you’re probably caught so off guard right now, but I thought that I was…and you felt…”  
I rubbed my forehead as my tears fell freely now from a broken heart. “Derek, we need to talk about this, please open the door. We can even forget about this if you want,” I hastily tried to compromise. “Derek please,” my hoarse voice begged. I knocked on the door and when I hadn't gotten a response, I pulled the door open. When the door was fully open, I found no sign of Derek or even Peter anywhere. “Derek?” I called as I descended down the three steps. I looked left and right and all around the apartment, but I didn’t see them anywhere.  
It dawned on me that I had confessed my love for Derek to his loft._

“I just had to tell him something and when he didn't answer, I went into the loft and he wasn’t there,” I said, sparing Deaton the emotional details. “It didn’t hit me then, but I realized his stuff was still there. Why would he leave without his stuff there?”  
“He wouldn’t,” Deaton answered. “The woman and men you described. They’re called the Calaveras. They’re veteran werewolf hunters that might have gotten a hold of Derek and Peter the night you left the loft.”  
“I led them to Derek?” my eyes went wide.  
“No,” he replied with a head shake. “They had already found him.”  
I met with Allison and Isaac and we all headed to _Beacon Hills Preserve_ to meet up with Scott, Stiles, and Lydia to find Malia. Deaton told me the Calaveras resided in Mexico and while they had already taken Derek and Peter, there’s no guarantee that they’re going to kill them. Deaton reasoned that they took the both of them for information, so if they kill them, torturing them would have been a waste of time. Time they could’ve been using to find information.  
When we got to the preserve, Allison revealed the weapons she was planning to use to tranquilize Malia with, but when we heard the sound of gunshots deeper into the woods, Scott took off on his motorbike. Mr. Tate had been hunting Malia in her werecoyote form, as he obviously didn’t know that it was his daughter. We had to stop Mr. Tate and help Malia before her father killed her. Allison, Isaac, and I took off following Scott’s motorbike. We only got so far before Isaac’s foot got caught in a bear trap. He cried out in pain as he tumbled to the floor. Allison and I kept running until we got to Isaac’s side. I dropped down to my knees to see the blood spreading from his ankle.  
“Allison,” Isaac panted as he looked up to her. “Shoot Tate,” he instructed.  
I looked forward to find Mr. Tate with his back to us and a gun pointed at Malia. Allison turned to the man and held up the tranquilizer gun. I noticed her hands shake and the desperation to steady them was written all over her face.  
“C-come on,” she urged herself.  
“Allison,” Isaac called her. “Breathe,” he told her. Allison shut her eyes for a moment to inhale deeply and exhale. She opened her eyes and took a shot but she missed.  
“Allison,” I got her attention. “You need to be brave,” I said. “That’s what you told me the night we were going to help Scott with Deucalion. You have to be brave. If you’re not Malia is going to die. I know you’re scared that you’re not going to make the shot, but you have to be brave and confident that you will.” Allison nodded and returned her gaze back to the man. After a few deep breaths, Allison pulled the trigger and stuck Mr. Tate right in the arm. The second he collapsed, we found that Malia had taken off.  
“Where’d she go?” Isaac asked.  
“I-I don’t know,” Allison glanced between us and where Malia was.  
“Scott is out here somewhere,” I said. “He’s going to find her. But right now,” I looked to Isaac. “We have to get you out of this thing.”   
Allison crouched down on Isaac’s other side and we took hold of the bear trap to try and remove it from Isaac’s leg. He cried out in pain and panted. “Stop! Stop!” he looked to us with glowing, amber eyes. “It-it hurts too much, I can’t.”  
“You have to,” Allison pleaded and Isaac looked to her. “You can heal,” she reminded him. “But you won’t if this is stuck in your leg.  
Isaac nodded but all of our attention turned to the distance as we heard the dominating, mighty roar that belonged to Scott. He was using it to force Malia to shift back to herself, but it also gave Isaac the strength to pull the clawed bear trap out of his leg and off of its hinges. “I think he did it,” I whispered.  
My dad took Stiles and I to Mr. Tate’s house to drop off Malia. While I wasn't sure what story they had come up with to explain Malia’s disappearance for all these years, Mr. Tate looked more than relieved to see her. They held each other for a long time on that porch as my dad moved off to the side. Stiles and I sat in the police van watching the scene unfold as dad gave us a smile.  
“H-hey,” Stiles called to me from the front seat. “I can read again,” he told me.  
“Really?” I sprung forward in my seat.  
He pointed to the side mirror, “‘Objects in mirror are closer than they appear’,” he read.  
“You can read!” I cheered before pulling him into an awkward hug.  
The case for impeachment was not as prominent as it originally was. Upon my dad solving an 8-year-long case, it looked good in the board’s eyes who decided to ease up on my father, meaning that there was a good chance that he was almost off the hook. That night, my phone rang with a call from Derek. In my excitement and my relief, I picked up the phone and answered it, almost dropping it by accident. “Derek, are you okay?” I questioned with bated breath.  
“I’m okay,” he replied. “I’m okay now.”  
“Thank God,” I sat down on my bed. “Where were you?”  
“It was some hunters-“  
“The Calaveras,” I named.  
“How did you know?”  
“I was talking to Deaton, I got worried and he suggested that they might have been the ones to take you.”  
“What led you to that conclusion?” Derek chuckled.  
I laid back on my bed as I hesitantly began. “I saw them when I left your loft. The night they took you - I didn’t know who they were, if I did I would’ve said something.”  
“Giselle, it’s okay,” he promised. “You didn’t know. They wanted us for something before - my mother’s claws. I went looking for them with Peter since they were locked and buried away somewhere.” Derek went on to explain that the hunters that captured them were looking for a shewolf. While Peter and Derek assumed they were talking about Cora, the hunters informed them that she wasn’t the only shewolf they were aware of and targeting. Braeden, the girl who saved Isaac from the Alpha twins saved Derek and Peter. “Listen, I need your help tomorrow,” Derek said.  
“With what?”  
“I’ll explain when you come over but if you could come over during your lunch hour.”  
“Only if you pick me up, it’s quite a walk,” I teased.  
“I’ll be there,” it was evident in his voice that he was smirking.  
“So will I.” I winced at my lame comeback.  
“I’ll talk to you then.”  
“Okay,” I nodded.  
After saying our goodbyes, I put my phone down onto my nightstand. I decided that maybe not telling Derek how I felt was for the best. I decided that if he felt the same, then fate would’ve made me tell Derek at a time where he was at his loft. But he wasn’t. So maybe that meant that he didn’t feel the same.


	27. Chapter 27

“Can you believe they wanted to join your pack?” I laughed as Scott, Stiles, Isaac, and I got into the school.  
“Nobody trusts them, so why should I?” Scott shrugged.  
Just before we got into the school, the twins had come to visit to try and get Scott to be their alpha. The three of us waved goodbye to Isaac as we dodged the lot of teenagers who were TPing the inside of the high school. It was mischief night, the night before halloween where shitty teenagers got even shittier.  
“What are you looking at?” Stiles questioned Scott as we rummaged through our locker.  
“Nothing,” Scott shook his head but I caught his gaze before it left Kira who was down the hall.  
“Kira,” I smirked as Stiles shoved a carton of eggs into his locker to use for later tonight.  
“Go talk to her,” Stiles encouraged.  
“Ask her out!” I added.  
“Yes, now!” Stiles shut the locker and we walked down the hall as we gave Scott a pep talk. “You’re the alpha - the alpha whose pack everyone wants to be a part of.”  
“Everyone wants you, Scott,” I added as I saw Isaac approaching us.  
“You’re the hot girl!” Stiles poked Scott’s chest.  
“I am?”  
“The hottest girl,” I promised before walking off with Stiles.  
“Hey, what are you doing for lunch?” Stiles asked me.  
“I have to help Derek with something.” Stiles’s face scrunched up in disgust. “Not. Like. That. What’s it going to take for you to stop acting like _you’re_ the younger one?” I quirked a brow.  
“We’re twins, first of all,” Stiles began. “So even if I was acting like the younger twin, I wouldn’t be any younger than you.”  
“You could’ve matured a whole lot in the five minutes that I was stuck in the womb, but you didn’t,” I smirked. The bell rang and I quickened my pace to get to class after waving Stiles off to his class.  
My foot tapped against the linoleum floor as I watched the clock slowly tick away. There was one more minute until I saw Derek. Sure, I had decided not to say anything about how I felt, but that couldn’t stop the whirlwind of excitement that wound up in my heart.

The second the bell rang, I beelined it for the door as I shoved my textbooks on the way into my bag. I sprayed myself with the perfume that I kept in my bag before I got outside. My eyes immediately found the black Camaro. As I approached it, the open passenger window gave me access to a view of Derek looking straight out the window ahead of him.  
 _He gets better looking every time_. I took some time to get to the car as I tried to think of something witty to say, but there wasn’t enough distance to weed through my excitement to think of something to say that would make him smile, so when I popped into his passenger seat, I simply said, “Hey stranger.”

When we got to his loft, I saw Peter sitting on the couch. While that was a less than welcoming sight, I couldn’t help but fixate my gaze on his severed ring finger on his right hand. “What the hell happened to you?”  
“Seriously,” Peter looked to his nephew. “You couldn’t think of anyone else to do it?”  
“Don’t be so scared,” I sat down in front of him. “I’m very good at what I do. That is, unless you piss me off.”  
Peter’s eyes rolled, but with a sigh, he held his hand out closer to me. I picked up the clawed top portion of his finger as Derek handed me a suturing tool and some thread with a smirk. “I don't think this’ll do,” I said.  
“Once it’s stitched up, it’ll heal,” Derek explained as he took a seat next to me.  
“All right, take hold of his finger and hold it in place,” I instructed Derek.  
He leaned in closer to me as he did as he was told. His proximity forced me to conceal a shiver that threatened to rip through me and tell on me. The warmth that radiated off of him and onto me made my heart stutter and I cursed myself as I tried to focus my energy on threading the needle. I found Peter staring at me on the other side of it with a knowing look. I sent him a subtle glare before lining up the needle with the skin. At least I got to pay him back for that look through stabbing him multiple times in the finger.  
“So tell me about the guy at the hospital,” Derek said, picking up our conversation from when we were in the car.  
His soft voice sent tingles down my spine and I could hardly understand why I was so reactive to everything he did. “William Barrow,” I said his name. “He was transferred to the hospital from county. He needed an operation done on him and county refused to do it. They should be doing it…” I glanced to the clock hanging on the wall. “…now, actually.”  
“Why didn’t any other hospital operate on him?”  
“Other hospitals said they were at full capacity, but I think they just didn't want to work on a murderer. He was an electrical engineer,” my eyes focused in more on the sutures. “Something came over him - he set off a bomb on a school bus,” I pulled the thread taut. “Four kids died, one lost both of their legs,” I relayed the information that Agent McCall had told Melissa last night.  
“They will be missed,” Peter sighed, uninterested. “You missed a spot,” he pointed with his other hand.  
 _Hey, if he was asking for more pain, I wouldn’t mind being the one who administered it_. I shoved the sharp needle a bit harder than I needed to into the spot he was gesturing at. Peter tensed up and let out a strained breath. “Don’t you have any anesthetic?” he looked to Derek.  
“Yep,” Derek replied, but didn’t offer him any.  
“I didn’t know you were so sensitive,” I rolled my eyes as I gestured for him to slowly turn his hand over so I could finish suturing the other side. Now, my hands were brushing against Derek’s at the new angle he was holding Peter’s finger in. I forced myself to calm down so my hands wouldn’t shake and give me away. “He said he saw glowing eyes.”  
“Like ours?” Derek questioned.  
“I think so,” I nodded. “That’s why he did it. Maybe he saw something he shouldn’t have and it freaked him out.” While I could’ve easily cut off the end of the thread once I finished it, I figured it was weak enough to be able to snap off with the right amount of force. So I did. Although it was petty, I knew he knew something and maybe that would give him even the slightest incentive to not say anything to Derek. “Is that it?” I nodded to the cylindrical, wooden container that sat on the end of the table.  
Derek nodded and brought it closer to us. I noticed the triskelion carved into the lid of it once it was in my line of view. It had three spirals stemming out from the centre of it, two in each bottom corner with one right in the centre on top of the centre. After a few twists of the lid in differing directions - almost like a combination - Derek was able to take it off and tip the container over to allow five werewolf claws to fall out onto the table. “After the fire, that’s all that was left of her,” Derek told me.  
“I can’t decide if that’s touching or morbid,” Peter remarked as he studied one of the claws.  
Hesitantly, I reached over and picked one up to inspect it. “What are you going to do with them?” I asked as I noticed the claws were white - almost clear at the tip, but faded down to a black near the end.  
“I have to ask her something,” Derek answered as I put the claw down. “From what I’ve heard, this is the only way it’s possible.” Derek put the open container in front of Peter who looked from his hand to the cylinder.  
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Peter looked to his nephew in disbelief.  
“Why do you think I got her to sew your finger back on?” Derek smiled smugly.  
“There’s always an element of danger to these procedures,” Peter tapped his fingers on the table as Derek collected the claws back into the box. “I’m not a fan of doing them, myself.” Derek and I shot him a look, doubting the credibility of that sentence. “Unless there is something in it for me.”  
I watched Derek knowingly smirk. “What do you want?”  
“I want to keep them.” Derek’s smirk fell again and his critical look returned and mirrored mine. “For sentimental value.”  
“You? Sentimental?” I quirked a brow. “I don’t think I’ve heard a bigger oxymoron.”  
“Talia was his mother and also _my_ sister,” Peter defended himself. “Am I not allowed a little bit of sentiment?”  
Derek only gave him a disapproving look once he dropped the last claw into the container. He tilted the opening so I could look into it. I noticed the claws had pierced the bottom of the box and they stood upright.  
Derek slid the triskelion box closer to Peter. He nodded his head as he stood up from the table and sauntered a few feet away. “How does this work?” I asked.  
“Once he puts his hand into the box, the claws will connect to his fingernails, kind of like a magnet. When he puts them in the back of my neck, it’ll be like it’s my mother - it’s a way of communicating with her.”  
I nodded. “So you don’t need me anymore then?” I asked.  
“Actually,” he drawled out. “I do.” I looked up to him, curious. “I’m going to need someone to bring me back - tether me back to reality.”  
“Sounds easy enough.”  
“If you touch either of us though, it will kill us.”  
“Never mind,” I sighed. “How am I supposed to tether you back then?”  
“Just being here should be enough,” he nodded, giving me a small smile.  
I returned it before we turned to look at Peter whose hand hovered over the lid, nails first. It was as if he was waiting for someone to glove his hand. Slower than anticipated, he lowered his hand into the container, but it was too long for Derek’s liking. He reached over to pull the box away from Peter, but I watched as he tensed up and his eyes shone blue, telling me the claws had been attracted to his fingernails. Once Peter came out of his trance, he removed his hands to reveal his now bloody fingertips. Probably from the sudden intrusion of the claws.  
I glanced to Derek who was already looking at me. He pulled up a chair and sat down on it, the back of it dividing the both of us. I knelt down in front of Derek so I could be in his line of vision. I held onto the back of the chair as we maintained eye contact and Peter sauntered behind Derek. “It’s not exactly my colour,” the older man commented. “This is going to be excruciatingly painful.”  
“Just do it,” Derek told him, but his eyes were locked on me as his fingers tapped each other.  
I wanted nothing more than to reach out and hold his hands, in an attempt to stop his display of nervousness and to let him know I was here. But I knew I shouldn’t. “I’ll be here,” I promised him lowly.  
Derek nodded as Peter aimed the tips of the claws towards the back of his neck. In an instant, Derek tensed up once the claws pierced through the skin of his neck and no matter how much I wanted to comfort him somehow, I knew touching him would do more damage than good.  
Although it was only about 10 minutes, Peter’s hand pulled away from Derek’s neck as the both of them were now sweaty and panting. Derek began to fall off of his seat, but I caught him before he hit the floor and slowly settled him there, not being able to hold him up for long.  
“Did you see her? What did you ask her? Did she say anything about me?” Peter fired questioned which caused Derek to look at him with an indescribable, negative emotion. “Well, _that_ doesn't look good,” Peter remarked.  
“Hey,” I got Derek’s attention. “You’re okay,” I told him to ease the panicked look. Derek slowly nodded as he slowly tried to make his way up to the chair and I helped him up to sit. “I’m not telling you anything,” Derek spat at his uncle’s greedy intentions. When Peter was about to protest, I stopped him, “Go away, Peter.” Without another word, he thankfully left. I grabbed a towel from the kitchen and used it to wipe the sweat off of Derek’s face. While I was curious about what his mother said that left him so panicked, I knew it was none of my business. “You’re okay,” I reminded him once his face was dried.  
“Thanks,” he sighed, getting comfortable in his seat. I pulled up another chair to sit in front of him. I pulled out my phone to check the time but I found my phone bombarded with text messages from Stiles. “I can drive you back to school,” Derek offered.  
“Not that you’re in any sort of position to drive anybody anywhere, the school is on lockdown,” I looked up from my phone. “William Barrow’s there.”  
“I thought he was in surgery.”  
“So did I,” I replied as I scrolled through the abundance of messages. “He woke up during surgery somehow…live flies flew out from the tumour in his stomach.”  
“Is that possible?”  
“Maggots? Yes - it’s a phenomenon, myiasis, but flies?” I looked to Derek. “Unheard of.”  
Stiles went on to tell me that Barrow was probably there to find kill Scott, Isaac, and the twins - the people with glowing eyes. No one was allowed to go in or go out until three o’clock. Lydia was hearing the buzzing of flies which told them that Barrow was still at the school considering a herd of flies escaped his tumour. The werewolves tried to use their sense of smell to come find Barrow, but they came up with nothing and the police were lead to somewhere else in town, despite Lydia’s belief that Barrow was still in the school. We recently found out that she was a banshee, a harbinger of death. Ms. Blake was the one who told Lydia what she was that night she almost killed her, when Lydia screamed for Scott to find her. In the end, there was no bomb that went off as expected, which left all of us wondering why Barrow was there in the first place.  
“I guess I’m stuck here,” I smirked at Derek who only smiled back, but I noticed it wasn’t a full smile. “Do you need something?” I worried. “Water? Some air? I could open a window,” I stood up and faced the wall of windows. “At least I could try and figure it out.”  
“I’m okay, Giselle,” he assured me and I sat down. “This procedure takes a lot out of you when you do it.”  
I nodded in understanding. “What do you think Peter was talking about? Asking if your mom said something to you about him?”  
Derek shrugged and shook his head. “Beats me,” he replied.  
Although I wasn’t curious about the topic of conversation Derek had with his dead mother, I wondered about what Derek’s family was like. Were they as tight-knit as they seemed? Was his father an alpha as well? I knew his mother was highly respected amongst other other werewolves and pretty much anyone she crossed, and she was someone to marvel at, but other than that, I knew nothing about her.  
“Can I ask you something?” I spoke, hesitantly.  
“Of course,” he replied.  
“What was your mother like?” a small smile played on my lips as I anticipated the wonderful things Derek could tell me about her. However, when I saw his eyes leave mine and become fixated on the floor, I immediately regretted asking. “I-I’m sorry,” I straightened up in my seat. “I shouldn’t have asked, it’s not my place.”  
“No,” Derek shook his head and looked up to me. “I don’t mind,” I noticed a ghost of a smile on his lips, but I couldn’t determine whether the smile was a product of his memory of her, or if it was the fact that someone was willing to learn about her.

Three o’clock had come around faster than I had anticipated. In the midst of the three hours, Derek and I had learned a plethora of information and shared memories of our mothers for us to bask in, laugh about, and dream about a parallel universe where the other was part of the memories we shared.  
I didn’t often talk about my mother, mainly because the only people who I would be comfortable sharing the information with knew most of it, because they had known her before she passed away. Reliving these memories with someone else who didn’t know her before she passed made me admire the wonder my mother was, and I could only hope to awaken the same feelings in Derek about his own mother. When Derek drove me home, I was only in my room for a few minutes before Stiles and Lydia showed up at my bedroom door. They had convinced me to go with them to the school to find out what Barrow was really doing there if he hadn’t set up a bomb to go off.

When we got to the school, we immediately headed for the science classroom, figuring that Barrow would head straight there, since he was an electrical engineer. Maybe there was something he needed there.  
“What are we looking for?” Lydia asked as Stiles headed straight for the chemical storage room. The door opened and when it did, Lydia commented that this door should’ve been locked.   
“What else do you notice?” Stiles asked as he looked through the shelves.  
“It smells like chemicals,” I replied, the fumes giving me a headache.  
“They wouldn’t have been able to catch a scent,” Lydia realized. “The smell is too strong.”  
Stiles noticed something on the ground behind him and when he flashed his light on it, we saw blood stains and staples. “He was here,” he whispered. “Performing very minor surgery on himself, you were right, Lydia.”  
“Why don’t I feel good about this, then?” the redhead replied.  
“It means that he was here to kill someone.”  
“Who?” I folded my arms.  
“That’s what we need to find out.”  
Heading back out into the classroom, Stiles told us to look around the room for clues - anything that could’ve told us who Barrow was looking for. While Lydia and Stiles searched the desks and floors, a possible clue was staring me right in the face. “19, 53, 88,” I read off of the blackboard. The both of them appeared behind me. “What is that?” I asked Lydia.  
“A formula?” Stiles suggested as Lydia approached the board.  
She explained the different combinations the chemicals made, but the information was useless to us. She picked up a piece of chalk and put the letter K next to 19, “Potassium,” she said. Then an I next to 53, “Iodine.” Finally, she wrote Ra next to the number 88.

19 K  
53 I  
88 Ra

“Kira,” Stiles read.  
“The girl that told us about bardo,” I supplied.  
“He was after her,” Lydia put the chalk down.  
“She’s with Scott right now,” Stiles told us as he dug into his pocket for his phone.

After many calls that went to voicemail and texts that went unanswered, Stiles tracked Scott’s phone. When we got to his location, we found his bike sitting outside of an unfamiliar house. When the three of us got out of the jeep, we found Scott laying on the ground beside his bike with blood trickling down his head.  
“Oh my God,” Lydia panted as we ran over to Scott.  
“Scott!” Stiles bent down to our friend and shook him by his collar.  
“Look out,” I said before nudging my brother out of the way. “Scott!” I called before I sent the palm of my hand towards his face. Just like Derek, Scott caught my hand before it hit him.  
“K-Kira! Barrow took Kira!” Scott told us once he was out of his dazed state.  
“We know,” Stiles replied as we all helped him up. “He was after her the whole time.”  
“I knew he was at school,” Lydia said.  
“Because you heard the flies,” Stiles told her.  
“What do you hear now?” Scott asked.  
Lydia paused before slowly shaking her head. “Nothing,” she sighed. “It’s like it’s on the tip of my tongue and I don’t know how to trigger it!” she ran her hands through her hair as she paced away from us. “It just…” she let out an aggravated sigh. “…it literally makes me want to scream.”  
“So scream,” I told her. “Lydia,” I called when she paused her movements. “Scream,” I demanded again. “Do it now.”  
I watched Lydia take in a deep breath and the second she let out a scream, it sent all of us clutching our ears at the intrusion of noise against the quiet neighbourhood. When she finished, the three of us looked to each other, impressed. “It’s not flies!” she turned to us. “It’s electricity!”  
“Barrow was an engineer,” I told them.  
“He worked at a power substation,” Stiles added.  
“Which one?” Scott asked.  
The second Stiles told us, the four of us drove to the substation, dialling 911 on the way there. When we got to the location, Stiles and I jumped out of the car as Scott came to a stop beside us on his bike. “You stay here and wait for the cops,” Stiles instructed Lydia once we were out.  
“Why me!?” she questioned us.  
“I only have one bat,” Stiles answered as I pulled my taser out of my bag.  
The both of us took off to find that Scott was already entering the building. A thud gave us a sense of which direction to head in. We sprinted as fast as we could to the sound, knowing that either Scott, Kira, or both of them were in trouble. A spark of light stopped Stiles and I in our tracks to shield our eyes from the light. Once the flashes ended, I noticed that the power in the whole building went off, leaving Stiles and I in the middle of the dark hallway.


	28. Chapter 28

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ph54wQG8ynk

“So when did you get there?” Agent McCall asked Stiles as he, Scott, Kira, Lydia, and I all sat in my father’s office. When the power came back on in the station and the police arrived, Scott had gotten to Kira in time, but the police, including Scott’s father decided to take us in for questioning.  
When the power went out at the station, it didn’t take long for the cops to show up, as well as Agent McCall. When he found out that Scott and his friends were all at the scene, he didn’t hesitate to bring us in for questioning. The five of us sat on the couch in the office as Agent McCall leaned on my father’s desk that my dad was sitting at.  
“At the same time,” my brother answered.  
“At the same time as who?”  
“Same time as me,” Scott answered.  
“Is that a coincidence?” his father questioned.  
“What do you mean coincidence?” Stiles used his words to trick the Agent.  
“That’s what I’m asking you, you two arrived at the same time, was that coincidence?’ Agent McCall began to get aggravated.  
“Are you asking me?” Scott replied with a question.  
“I think he’s asking me,” Stiles said to Scott.  
“I think he’s asking both of you,” Lydia chimed in.  
“Okay,” Scott’s father sighed. “Let me answer the questions.” I raised a brow at his blunder that went unnoticed by him for a solid moment. I noticed my dad’s amused reaction as he sat behind his desk and Agent McCall. “Let me ask the questions. Just so I have this absolutely clear,” he flipped through his notepad. “Barrow was in the chemistry closet of the school, someone left him a coded message on the blackboard telling him to kill Kira, then Barrow took Kira to a power substation and tied her up with the intent of electrocuting her which ended up blacking out the entire town.”  
“Sounds about right,” Stiles confirmed. “You can’t make this stuff up.”  
“How did you know he’d take her to a power station?” Agent McCall’s attention was back on my brother again.  
“Because he was an electrical engineer, so where else would he take her?”  
“That’s one hell of a deduction there, Stiles.”  
“Disappointed you couldn’t come up with it yourself?” I sassed.  
“Don’t be too discouraged, I do take after my father, he is in law enforcement,” Stiles added, sending a wink and a smile to our father who had to put his hand over his mouth to keep from bursting out in laughter, but a snort from the restricted laugh sent Agent McCall glancing to him over his shoulder.  
Dad played it off of as a cough. “You two, just answer the man’s questions.”  
“We made a good guess,” Stiles answered.  
“What were you two doing?” he looked to his son and Kira. While Scott said they were eating pizza, Kira said they were eating sushi. However, when they gave it another shot Scott was now saying they had sushi while Kira said the opposite. After a moment, they concluded that they both ate sushi and pizza. “You believe this?” Agent McCall threw the question to my father.  
“To be honest,” dad sighed. “I haven’t believed a word Stiles has said since he learned how to speak.”  
“And Giselle.”  
“Over the years, he’s rubbed off on her. But I think these kids found themselves at the right place at the right time and that girl sitting there is very lucky for it,” my dad looked to Kira.  
We were let go after Kira told Scott’s dad that everything we said was true.

“I’m still bummed that I had to ditch the taser - I loved that thing,” I said to Stiles at school that day. The power was still out in the whole town, but school was still up and running.  
“Dad said he’d keep an eye out for it,” Stiles reminded me. “Plus if Scott’s dad saw you with it, he would arrest you on the spot.”  
“I guess you’re right,” I folded my arms and leaned against the locker beside ours as I saw Kira get to her locker. “There she is,” I said to Stiles who was picking up his keys from the ground that had fallen from the locker.  
“Hey guys,” Scott said from behind us. We greeted him quickly before our sights returned on Kira. “I have to talk to her.”  
Just as he was about to approach her, Stiles held out his hand to stop him. “Please don’t tell me that you need to be reminded that someone left a coded message for Barrow to kill her.”  
“I don’t think so, Scott,” I shook my head when he tried to protest. “I have to agree with Stiles on this one. If someone wants her dead, it has to be for a reason. Until we know for sure that she’s not a mass murdering psycho, I don’t think any of us should talk to her.”  
“What if she’s like me?” Scott reasoned as we watched Kira walk off.  
“That girl walked through 1.1 gigawatts of electricity that shut the power to the whole city down,” Stiles reminded us. “She’s not like you.”  
“We have to help her get her phone back,” Scott told Stiles and I at lunch.  
“Okay, I know our generation is the only one with separation anxiety when it comes to our phones,” I began while pulling out my water bottle from my bag. “But what’s a few days going to hurt?” I shrugged before taking a sip of my water as we sat at the table outside.  
“They’re going to look through her phone.”  
“That’s the point of taking her phone as evidence, Scott,” Stiles snorted. “What’s so important about it anyways?”  
“She just has…some things on there that she doesn’t want anyone seeing,” Scott chose his words carefully.  
“Like what?” I asked.  
“Like…” he glanced between my brother and I. “…photos,” he sighed. “Naked ones.”  
With eyes as wide as saucers, I looked between the boys and nodded. “Oh well,” I sighed. “I guess…”  
“She can’t take the phone out of the station,” Stiles shook his head.  
“You can delete them from her phone in the station,” I suggested.  
“That’s perfect!” Scott smiled. “So you’ll help us?”  
I glanced to Stiles who reluctantly nodded. “Yeah, I guess we will.”

That evening when the small amount of deputies were on duty for the night shift, Scott and Kira pulled up to the back of the station on Scott’s bike as Stiles and I sat in the jeep waiting for them to arrive. Stiles gave them various keycards that he had copied.  
“You’re going to use the service door entrance by the dumpster,” Stiles pointed to it.  
“No one uses that,” I added. “You’ll be in the clear since the blackout will only leave one person at the front desk and maybe one or two extra deputies.”  
“If there’s trouble, I’ll text you, but if you guys get caught, I can’t help you,” Stiles shook his head. “Our dad’s already under investigation for impeachment, because of your dad so if anything happens, we will run and leave you both for dead.” Kira and Scott let out a laugh before Scott sincerely thanked us.  
“We would ask our dad to…” I trailed off. “…but, you know,” I shrugged. Scott nodded as we sent each other smiles before he and Kira took off into the night. “Bring my taser if you find it!” I called to them as quietly as I could.  
“I hate waiting,” I shook my head after checking my watch for the fifth time.  
“Scott won’t get caught,” Stiles shook his head. “He’s smart.” I glanced outside the window. “Hey, did you lose any keys lately?”  
“Uhm,” I chuckled at the weird question. “Not that I know of-“ the smile quickly fell from my face at the sight of headlights lighting up our faces. “Oh God.”  
“It’s Scott’s dad,” Stiles told me.  
“Perfect,” I sighed as Stiles texted our friend.  
“He’s not answering,” he told me as I watched Agent McCall enter the building.  
“I’m so going to regret this,” was the last thing Stiles said before he exited the car and followed Agent McCall in, ignoring my questions and protests. It was only a few minutes before Stiles returned. “I stalled him as long as I could,” he panted as he sat in the driver’s seat.  
“Do you think they did it?” I asked.  
Before Stiles could answer, I saw Scott and Kira running out of the door they came from with large smiles on their faces. “We did it,” Scott announced. “All the pics deleted.”  
“That was awesome!” Kira jumped in her spot. “I mean,” she tried to wipe the giant grin off of her face. “Terrifying! Completely terrifying, but awesome!”  
“Hey, you guys wouldn’t want to go to a party, would you?” Scott asked us.  
“There’s a party?” I smirked.

“There’s a party!?” I called over the loud music as I watched the painted teens jump and dance around to the beat. “In Derek’s loft!?”  
“The twins set it up with Danny,” Scott told me.  
“He’s going to kill all of us,” I told him.  
“Not if he doesn’t know about it!” I heard someone reply. I found a shirtless, but painted Ethan smiling at us. The UV lights posted around the loft made his paint glow. “Come on, you guys need to get painted!” he said to us before taking my hand and leading me to the other side of the loft. We stopped before a woman with blonde hair, she put paint on various parts of her to make her stand out.  
“She needs to be painted!” Ethan called over the music.  
“Face or body!?” the woman asked me.  
“Face,” I replied almost immediately. “Why are you being so nice to me!?” I asked Ethan before the woman began painting my face.  
“So you’ll be less likely to electrocute me for using Derek’s loft when this party’s over,” he smiled.  
I couldn’t help but laugh along with him before turning my face to the woman and letting her do a design on my face with the paint. When she announced that she was all done, she held up a hand mirror to me and I saw various lines and dots all over my face that made a beautiful design that was unique for me. “Thanks!” I called to her and the second she walked away from me, Ethan appeared with a drink in his hand for me. “You don't have to do this!” I told him as I took the drink. “You don’t have to impress me to get into Scott’s pack.”  
“I know, but getting along with his friends is always a good start right?”  
I rolled my eyes but couldn’t stop my smirk. I took a sip of the drink before Ethan got pulled somewhere else. I watched as everyone danced around with their drinks in their hands. While the party scene had never been one I’d find myself in, I figured one party couldn’t hurt. I work hard in school, at the hospital, with the supernatural stuff - I deserve to have some fun.  
With this decision made, I downed my drink of whatever alcohol this was before refilling my glass. An hour later, I was tipsy. Stumbling here and there between the crowds of people as I danced with some girls I had in some of my classes. While we didn’t know each other well, we were having the time of our lives. If this is what high school was supposed to be like, then I hate to say that I’ve been missing out. I let out a laugh as Riley, the girl from art class spun me in a circle. When I almost fell, she caught me and the both of us laughed. Through the crowd of dancing, painted teenagers, I saw him. Derek.  
He was walking in from the entrance of the loft and while everyone around him seemed happy, joyous, and full of energy, Derek was a sore thumb and the polar opposite of me and all my classmates. When everyone wore a smile, he wore a scowl that seemed almost out of place on him considering the amount of times I’ve seen him smile, his lack of blacklight paint was a particular discrepancy between everyone and himself, and his rigid demeanour was daunting among the teenagers who were letting loose thanks to the alcohol at the party. No force could stop the smile that appeared on my face at the sight of him and maybe that was because of the alcohol along with my devastating attraction to him.  
“Hey! Derek!” I called as I jumped over the crowd of teenagers and waved to get his attention. As I predicted, Derek’s werewolf hearing caught onto my voice and his frown got clearer as he got closer to me. “You’re here!” I grinned up at him before giving him a hug.  
“What the hell is this!?” Derek questioned in my ear as he placed a hand on my waist.  
I hoped the music was loud enough to drown out the sound of my heartbeat and when I knew that probably wasn’t how it worked, I hoped that Derek was more focused on the state of his home to be listening to my heartbeat. “It’s a party!” I laughed, keeping my head on his shoulder.  
“Giselle, I have to get everyone out of here.”   
When I felt Derek’s hand move from my waist, I pulled him back and placed both of his hands on my waist. While this was bolder than I ever could’ve imagined myself being, I know that I could always blame this on being drunk, even if I wasn’t as drunk as I would make myself out to be. “Oh come on, don’t be such a sourwolf! Dance with me!”  
While the song was fast, it was slower than the ones that were playing all night, but it had a hint of energy that all of the other songs of the night had. I absorbed the way our close proximity felt as I found the temple of my head against his cheek. I shut my eyes as I let my body sway in his arms. While he didn’t pull away from me, he stayed rooted in his spot, still holding onto me and this fact alone was enough to make my insides shake. I raised my head as I opened my eyes, the side of my face being prodded by his beard. I let my head lean against his a little more as it felt heavier than I would’ve liked it to. I took in the feeling of our faces and specifically our lips being closer than they ever have been and the possibility of either one of us turning our heads to meet the other’s lips seemed appealing, but I didn’t have enough alcohol in my system to will me to do such a thing.

I allowed my hands to travel to the back of Derek’s neck and my fingers to play with the hairs at the nape of it. I felt him burrow closer to my shoulder at the action which almost sent me falling to my knees. His arms pulled me closer to him just as I felt someone brush past me, but I couldn’t care less who was passing by because my attention was only focused on the man in front of me. It always has been focused on him.  
Just behind his ear, I noticed something. I pulled the side of my head away from his bearded cheek just as I reached up to fold his ear out of the way. “Hey, do you have another tattoo I don’t know about?” I smirked. One of Derek’s hands left my body to feel the mark. “It looks like a backwards five,” I told him.  
Derek pulled away from me and I felt disappointment flood me as the cool air took his place. I watched as he took off down to the DJ booth. After some disagreements with the bouncer guarding the DJ, Derek flipped the turntables over, effectively shutting off the music. “Get out!” Derek used some of his wolf abilities to increase the power and volume in his voice.  
The startled teenagers ran out of the loft as Aiden handed off Lydia to Danny and Allison carried Isaac in. Scott and Kira descended from the spiral stairs that led to the roof. But it wasn’t just us. There were about six men all dressed in black wearing masks. “Guys,” Aiden called once everyone from school left the loft. “They’re all looking at me.” The mysterious men all took a step closer to Aiden. “Why are they all looking at me!?”  
I looked to Derek who was across the room from me. I had no way to defend myself against these things. I watched as a smoke emitted from them, almost like they could be blown away like dust if the wind was strong enough. I watched as Scott nodded to Derek and instantly, they attacked. I found Kira alone and I rushed over to her to pull her away from any danger as we burrowed further into the back of the loft. I watched as the masked men were quick to dodge the hits and claws of Derek and Scott, even landing a few hits themselves. I watched as Derek got a hold of one of their necks and snapped it, but just as he was about to move on, the man seemed to heal himself and sent Derek flying across the room as Scott followed him.  
Once they all turned to Aiden again, Isaac stepped up and revealed his claws. One of the masked men turned to him and reached to his bare chest and twisted, almost like a key. When he pulled his hand back, he had retracted a sword from his chest out of thin air. The spinning of the sword was enough to send Isaac back in his place.  
“Somebody do something,” Allison demanded as two of the men held Aiden’s arms as another one cupped the side of his face and held his gaze. Once they released Aiden, he dropped to the floor and in one synchronized motion, they all turned to Kira and I. They took a step towards us, but in an instant, Scott and Derek had acted as a barrier between us and them. The both of them bared their teeth in a challenging manner, ready to take them on, but they didn't have to. Once sunlight streamed through the window, they disappeared like dust.  
“What the hell were those things?” Scott asked as Derek glanced to me to make sure I was okay. No one had an answer for Scott, except for Isaac.


	29. Chapter 29

They’re called the oni. They left the backwards five on Isaac, Derek, Ethan, and Lydia. They had attacked Isaac last night at Allison’s place, they attacked Derek at outside the loft, and the rest at the party. Anyone who had a connection to the supernatural was targeted according to Argent. He had faced these things before, a long time ago.

The next day, Stiles was quiet, but I could tell he hadn’t slept a wink last night.  
“Hey, what happened to you at the party?” I asked him in the car. “You disappeared.”  
“Yeah, I had to, uh, figure some things out.” I furrowed my brows at his response. “I’ll tell you later, Benny,” Stiles muttered once we got to the school. Before I could ask him anything else, he got out of the jeep and stalked into the school. I let out a sigh as I pulled my bag along with me and got out of the car as well. When I shut the door behind me, I caught a glimpse of a familiar physique and black hair before a group of people got in my line of vision and made me lose sight of the person.  
It looked like Derek, but maybe I was still absorbed in the memories of last night. Not a single one left me and I only hoped that the next time we saw each other, he didn’t ask me anything about my actions. When I got to my locker, I looked around for my biology textbook before I found it hiding behind Stiles’s business textbook. “Typical Stiles,” I rolled my eyes at the way he just threw things into our already small locker. I glanced down the hall to see Scott and Stiles approaching me and Stiles looked even worse. “Hey, what’s happened to you?” I asked my brother.  
“He really needs some rest,” Scott told me. “I was thinking you should bring him home.”  
“I-I’ll bring the car around,” Stiles muttered.  
“No need, wait for me at the jeep,” I instructed, not trusting him to drive anywhere, not even 10 feet to the entrance of the school. Stiles did as he was told, leaving Scott and I alone. “What happened? He looked worse than when I saw him this morning and that was only-“ I glanced to my watch. “-15 minutes ago?”  
“I-I don’t know, he was telling me about Barrow and a key he had. Did he say anything about the key to you?”  
“He only asked me if I was missing any keys the night you and Kira were getting her phone back. “But I never saw the key.”  
“Me neither,” Scott shook his head. “He’s under the impression that he is the one who opened the chemistry room for Barrow and left the message on the board for him.”  
“What?” I cried. “No way,” I shook my head.  
“That’s what I said. Maybe you should take him to the hospital, have them take a look at him.”  
“I will,” I nodded and after I thanked Scott for bringing Stiles to me, I headed to the jeep to retrieve my brother, deciding we would walk to the hospital.  
“I’m sorry, but Dr. Gardiner isn’t back until next week,” Melissa told us from behind the desk at the hospital. “Do you want to try waiting for one of the urgent care doctors?” When Stiles didn’t answer and began to back away from the desk, I turned to see his eyes filling with tears and his chest heaving. “Stiles, are you all right?” Melissa rounded the desk.  
“I-I don’t know,” Stiles replied. “I-I mean I guess,” he continued as Melissa approached him. “I-I guess not really.” I placed a hand to his shoulder and rubbed it as comfortingly as I could, hating to see my brother like this.  
“All right kiddo,” Melissa nodded as she took hold of Stiles’s other shoulder. “Come with me, it’s okay.”  
Once we got to the room, Melissa had pulled out a form that she had to fill out, sort of like a questionnaire for Stiles.  
“Blackouts?” Stiles paused to think. “Not for that long. And sleepwalking.”  
“He used to do that as a kid,” I noted as I sat in the chair next to the bed that he was sat on, a hand on his knee.  
“Also, some really bad anxiety.”  
“Panic attacks?” Melissa clarified.  
“More than usual. Also, I lost the inability to read, but that might’ve just been from momentarily sacrificing myself to the magic tree…” my brother sighed.  
“I recall something like that vaguely,” Melissa smirked. “How many hours of sleep are you getting?”  
“Eight.”  
“A night?”  
“The past three days.” My head snapped to look at Stiles along with Melissa’s head. We watched as Stiles used his fingers to count. “Yeah, eight,” he confirmed.  
“Have you been feeling irritable?” Melissa questioned as she turned from Stiles and slipped on some latex gloves.  
“Yeah, possibly to the point of homicide.” I sent my brother a pointed look, really not appreciating the fact that he was joking at a moment like this.  
“Inability to focus?”  
“No, the adderall isn’t working.”  
“Impulsive behaviour?”  
“More than my usual? It’s hard to tell.”  
“Vivid dreams during the day?” Melissa glanced over her shoulder to me with a knowing look as she now harboured a needle in her hand. He rolled his eyes and silently asked if she knew what it was. She looked to me.  
“Sleep deprivation,” I answered as Melissa disinfected Stiles’s arm.  
“What is that?” my brother asked staring at the needle.  
“A sedative,” I answered.  
“How long does it take to…” Stiles trailed off as he began to lie down on the bed. “…oh not long,” he realized as Melissa and I helped tuck him in.  
I watched as he took hold of Melissa’s hand to stop her. “Get some rest,” she told him as his eyes fluttered shut.  
“Thanks mom,” he muttered before falling asleep.  
I noticed the mixture of pleasant surprise and awkwardness on Melissa’s face at the comment. “I’ll stay here with him,” I decided as I pulled up a seat next to him. “He needs someone to be here with him.” Melissa said nothing, allowing me to stay with my brother, who I have clearly been neglecting the past few days.  
I stayed with Stiles the whole day that day. I couldn’t help but beat myself up for not being able to see how sleep deprived my own brother had become. Maybe I’ve just been so caught up with Derek that I haven’t been checking in on Stiles. I left the room only for bathroom breaks and once for food, but other than that, I stayed in the room as a small way of apologizing to him for being so absent lately. A rap on the door got my attention and I found Melissa coming in. “Hi,” she smiled at me.  
“Hey,” I replied, my eyes returning to Stiles’s sleeping frame.  
“We should get going,” she told me cautiously. “We need to be at the house before sundown to keep the oni busy.”  
While we did that, Allison, Argent, and Isaac were trying to get information from a Japanese gang member that had faced these things before. “You go, I’ll catch up,” I told her absentmindedly.  
“You’re taking the jeep?”  
“No,” I shook my head. “I’ll just catch a ride with Derek.”  
“Derek?” Melissa questioned. “Won’t it take some time for him to get down here? We have to get there soon so we can help lay down the mountain ash.”  
“He’s already here,” I informed her. “He’s been following me all day.” I heard Melissa open the door and peek out down to the waiting room. “Blue shirt, head buried in the _TIME_ magazine.” It was the only sight I found consistent in the hospital the whole day.  
“How could you tell it’s him?” Melissa shut the door again.  
“I’ve been seeing that same blue shirt and black hair all day, plus no one reads a magazine that close to their face.” I heard Melissa chuckle, but it only brought a small smile to my lips as the feeling of guilt plagued me. “I’ll meet you at the house,” I told her before she walked out, but she left the door open, signalling for me to leave as soon as possible.  
I glanced over my shoulder to the open door. “I’ll meet you in the parking lot, Derek,” I said as if he were right next to me. It was only a matter of seconds before Derek was strolling by Stiles’s room, looking over at me in just the right time to smirk at me. Once he was out of sight, I turned back to Stiles. “I’m coming back, okay?” I whispered to him. “I just have to go help our friends and then I’ll be right back. I’m _so_ sorry for not paying attention, Mischief,” I shook my head. “You just need to sleep and you’ll be as good as new,” I promised. “So rest up and I swear I’ll be back. I won’t do this to you ever again.” I stood up from my seat, leaned over, and kissed his forehead, before grabbing my bag and exiting the room, but not without one last look at Stiles.  
“Melissa left a minute ago and the sun is setting soon, so we’ll have to be quick,” Derek informed me as he held the door open for me. I got in without a word and when he started the car and peeled out of the parking lot, my mind was only on Stiles.  
“He’s going to be okay, you know?” Derek spoke after driving in silence for a minute.  
“I know, but I just feel like I let him down.”  
“How?”  
“Now, more than ever, I should be able to come up with a plethora of reasons why Stiles shouldn’t be sleeping at night, but he is-he…was.”  
“That’s not your fault that he’s not sleeping,” Derek tried to persuade me. “You can’t monitor him 24/7.”  
“I should’ve been paying attention,” I shook my head. “I should’ve been with him, talking to him and listening to him, not drinking and dancing.”  
“Did you not want to dance?” he glanced over at me. “Last night?”  
My head whipped over to him as my heart hammered against my chest and he shifted in his seat. His eyes were trained on the road before us but if I wasn’t mistaken, I could see the corner of his mouth twitching up. “I mean, it was fun for me,” I shrugged as a smile of my own tried to fight its way onto my face.  
“Yeah, me too.”  
I tried to hold back a laugh but failed. “Standing there with your arms around your dance partner isn’t dancing.”  
“What? You think _you_ were dancing?” Derek chuckled. “You were swaying back and forth like a flag on a windy day.”  
“I was not,” I protested. “I had a bit to drink but not that much. I would’ve remembered if I was.”  
“So you remember it?”  
“Yeah, I do,” I nodded, not knowing what else to say. I didn’t want to say anything too forward in a fear of scaring him away, but my emotions begged and pleaded to be heard. “It was…” I paused to find the word that would best fit the situation. “…cool.”  
“ _Cool_ ,” Derek smirked.  
“Yeah,” I glanced over at him. “Dancing with your friends is cool,” I shrugged. “It’s a cool thing to do…” I trailed off as Derek parked in front of Scott’s house. When we got close enough, we noticed that the oni had appeared just as the sun went down. Derek shifted before instructing me to stay behind him. Through the back door, Derek had jumped in and brought some attention off of Scott and onto himself as he was ready to fight. I found Kira on the other side of the room. When we didn’t think we could get more help, the twins appeared, helping to fight off the oni.  
I saw Melissa had dragged Agent McCall into the corner of the room where he was currently bleeding out from a stab wound that was probably inflicted by the oni. When I looked back to Kira, I found her unknowingly standing in front of an oni.  
“Kira!” I called as I charged over to her in the midst of the chaos. Before the oni could attack her, I pulled her out of the way.  
“Mom, you have to do it now!” Scott called to Melissa who held her dying ex-husband and a jar of mountain ash.  
“Giselle!” Melissa called to me before holding out the jar. I dashed over to grab it from her as Derek was finishing throwing the last one of them out of the house. I threw the glass jar down on the threshold of the back door before jumping back as one of them tried to reach for me. I felt Derek pull me to his chest and far away from the door as he growled at the creatures.  
I watched as two of them stood outside of the door, watching us. One of them held their hands up and tried to reach in, but its hand retracted against the mountain ash barrier that had lined itself up along the door, completely sealing them off from us. I let out a sigh as I let my tense figure relax in Derek’s arms, my head falling against his shoulder, the fist I made to grip onto the collar of his shirt flattened out to rest on his chest, and I let out a breath I had been holding in. “Thank you,” I breathed out.  
“No problem,” he replied, but neither of us made a move to let go of the other.  
“Scott!” Melissa called from upstairs. “This isn’t looking good!” She had gotten Agent McCall up the stairs to get him away from the possibility of getting hurt again and the supernatural. I watched Scott rush over to the stairs upon her calls.  
“She can’t go through it either!” we heard from the kitchen. I felt Derek’s arms release me as I did the same to him. When we got to the next room, I found the twins interrogating Kira. “So what are you?”  
“She’s a kitsune, idiot,” Derek replied once we got into the room. The four of us looked to Derek. “Use your eyes,” he told the twins. “The younger ones give off an aura, because they haven’t learned how to conceal it yet,” his eyes fell on Kira. “She probably doesn't know what kind she is.”  
When Scott returned, he pulled Kira aside to talk to her alone as the twin told Derek they showed up to protect Scott, in hopes to be a part of his pack. As the three of them talked, I turned to the open doorway and looked at the oni’s mask. I studied the angry expression that was carved into it and couldn’t help but wonder what was behind it. As I turned back around, my hand swung out and before I could pull it back before the oni got to it, the invisible mountain ash barrier pushed it away for me.  
I froze in the spot I stood. I looked between my hand and the doorway, completely perplexed as to why the mountain ash barrier had an effect on me. _Should I try it again?_ Maybe if I put my hand out, it would go through the barrier and the oni would use it as someway to hurt me. But if I tried again, I could get a clear view of my hand hitting the invisible wall. Something I didn’t get before. Slowly, I raised my pointer finger and began to let my hand reach forward to prod at the barrier again.  
“What are you doing!?” Derek called as he took hold of my hand. “Giselle,” he called when I didn’t look at him. I tore my gaze away from the oni and to Derek who stood close to me. “What are you doing?” he asked again, calmer.  
“Nothing,” I shook my head. “I was just looking.” Derek’s eyes studied me, looking at me as if I had three heads. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you,” I whispered.  
Derek shook his head in response. “It’s okay,” he glanced to the oni then back to me. “Let’s just get you away from here,” he wrapped an arm around me and pulled me away from the door.  
Only a few minutes had passed by before the oni used their fists and swords to bang against the barrier. The house began to shake and the plates on the counters fell and smashed to the ground along with picture frames. “What are they doing?” I questioned.  
“Testing for weaknesses,” Aiden answered.  
I watched as the oni in the doorway in front of me used his knife to try and pierce the barrier. I watched as the sword got trapped in the barrier before the masked man began to push his knife further in while its identical twin next to him began to bash its fists against the barrier. “G-guys,” I called, tugging on Derek’s hand that was still connected to mine. I pointed to where my gaze was fixated.  
“What do we do?” Aiden asked as Derek took his stance in front of me.  
“S-Scott,” I said. “Scott!” I yelled and he came rushing into the room to see what we were all looking at.  
He got Allison on the phone to try and tell us how to fight against the oni. Allison said that they were looking for someone possessed. They know that almost everyone in here, minus me was supernatural, but the only thing they’re looking for is a dark spirit - a nogitsune. Once the oni have checked each of us and know we’re not a nogitsune, they won’t hurt us and they’ll leave us alone.  
“Scott, we have to do something,” Derek called.  
When the oni broke through the barrier, Derek and the twins took a challenging stance, but Scott told them not to do anything. Scott, Kira, and I were the only ones here that weren’t marked by the oni. I watched as Scott held out his hand to Kira for her to take before they walked over to the oni. I looked up to Derek who was looking back at me.  
As I walked forward, I found myself holding onto Derek’s hand tighter the closer I got to them. Scott, Kira, and I all took a stance in front of each oni member. The second the oni I was stood in front of cupped the side of my face, my entire body went rigid and my hand fell out of Derek’s grasp. My eyes stayed locked onto the yellow dots of light that appeared through the darkness of the eyeholes of the mask. I felt myself being brought to my knees as the oni’s face got closer to mine and the eyes continued to peer into my soul. Soon, its eyes faded back into the blackness of the eyeholes. Just before it let go, I felt a slight burning sensation before I felt my body temperature drop as I fell to the ground, weak, cold, and in some way, violated by having their eyes look so deeply into something so personal.  
In a puff of smoke, the oni disappeared and I felt the back of my ear for the scar the oni left, which meant I had passed their test. Which meant that I was safe. I felt Derek scoop my upper body into his arms and I burrowed into his chest as I shivered violently. “D-Derek,” I chattered out before he shushed me. “I-I’m c-cold.”  
“I know,” Derek replied as he held me tighter to his warm chest as the twins went off to find some blankets to wrap Scott and Kira in. I felt Derek lift me up onto the couch and when the twins returned, Derek came over to me and wrapped me in a blanket as well as his arms.

Once our side effects of being marked died down, Scott and I got to the hospital, following Melissa and Agent McCall. When we got to Stiles’s room, we found it empty. The hospital bed was dishevelled, telling me he had just gotten up out of bed and left it like that. If the bed was made neatly, I wouldn’t have even known he was once in this room.  
“Where did he go?” I worried.  
“He has to be here somewhere,” Scott replied. “His scent is still strong, so he can’t be far.”  
After a few minutes of searching the floor, Scott and I found Stiles in one of the ORs. “Hey Mischief,” I called softly. Stiles turned to us and smiled. He walked over to us mildly confused and the three of us headed out of the OR to tell Stiles about what had happened. “What were you doing out of your room?” I asked him.  
“I was looking around for Melissa and I just found myself there,” he replied. “But I’m ready to go home now,” he told me.  
“Okay,” I nodded. “I can just call dad to pick us up.” Once we got home, I made sure Stiles was okay. While he still didn’t look brand new, he was looking a lot better. “I’m really sorry for not being here for you lately,” I told him in his room that night.  
“There’s nothing to be sorry for,” he waved off the apology. “We’ve just been busy - school, you with the hospital, all the supernatural stuff.”  
“I guess,” I sighed. “But next time something’s wrong, you promise you’ll tell me?”  
“Of course, Benny,” Stiles nodded with a smile. I slept well that night, knowing that Stiles was getting better quickly and that things would all be back to normal soon.


	30. Chapter 30

The ringing of my phone sent me springing up in bed. When I noticed that it was still dark outside, I looked to my clock. _1:24AM_ Who was calling me now? I groaned as I picked up my phone from the dresser. _Stiles_.  
“What the hell?” I muttered before answering the phone. “Stiles, why are you calling me?” when he didn’t reply, I called his name. Then I heard his ragged breath coming through the phone. He sounded like he was crying. Immediately I sprung up out of bed. “Stiles? What’s wrong?” I asked as I got out of my room.  
“Benny?” Stiles cried softly.  
When I got to his room, I realized the door was left open and Stiles wasn’t there. All the red yarn he used on the board he had to keep up with all the supernatural crimes had been tied to the handles of a pair of scissors which were stabbed into his bed. “Stiles? Where are you?” I questioned.  
“I don’t know - I-I don’t know how I got here, I think I was sleepwalking,” he was on the verge of tears.  
“What do you see, Stiles? Tell me what you see,” I panted, beginning to panic.  
“I-It’s dark, Benny. I-I can’t see much.” Before I could respond, the line went dead.  
“No, no, no,” I pleaded as I called him back, but I only got his answering machine. I kept trying but with every voicemail I got, I felt the tears build up and spill over. After another failed attempt of calling him, Stiles had called me back. “Mischief,” I answered.  
“I-I don’t think I can get out of here, I-I can’t m-move.”  
“Where are you?”  
“I don’t know, but something’s around my legs and-and I think it’s bleeding.”  
“How much is it bleeding?” I asked as I found myself pacing around his room. “Stiles!” I cried when he didn’t answer.  
“I can’t s-see,” he continued to whisper to me. “There’s-there’s some kind of smell in here. Something smells terrible - my-my eyes are watering.”  
“Mischief, I’m going to call dad-“  
“No Benny!” Stiles cut me off. “Y-you can’t. D-dad already worries about us - a-about me too much. Benny, you have to promise not to tell dad! Pl-please,” Stiles cried quietly. “F-Find Scott. He can do it. You guys can do it.”  
“I don’t kn-know if we can!”  
“I-I have to call you back.”  
“What!? No Stiles, don’t!” I wailed, but he hung up anyways. I felt my shaky knees give out under me and I collapsed on Stiles’s floor. I waited for a moment, to see if Stiles would call me back, but when he didn’t, I dialled Scott’s number.  
“Giselle?” his groggy voice answered.  
“S-Scott! I need you to come - You need to come over right now.”  
“What? What happened?”  
“S-Stiles isn’t here,” the sentence alone brought me to tears. “I-I don’t know where he is, he called me and-and he doesn’t know where he is - he might’ve been sleepwalking, but we need to find him, Scott, please!”  
“Okay! I’m coming right now!”  
When Scott hung up, I found myself trying to call Stiles again and surprisingly he answered. “Giselle,” Stiles’s voice quivered, but still stayed low. “Did you c-call him?”  
“I called Scott,” I replied. “He’s coming and we’re going to find you!” I promised.  
“Dad, did you call dad?”  
“No, I didn’t - we’re going to find you. Do you know where you are?”  
“S-some kind of basement, I think.”  
“In a house?”  
“No, it-it seems industrial. I-it’s cold, there’s a furnace b-but it’s cold. Benny, I-I have to turn the phone off, it’s going to die.”  
“Stiles, you need to tell me more - what else do you see? We need something to tell us where to find you.”  
“I-I can’t talk, I have to go,” he whispered.  
“Stiles, why are you whispering?” I asked.  
And lower than he ever whispered through our conversations that night, Stiles told me, “because I think there’s someone in here with me.”  
Soon enough, Scott and Isaac showed up and I showed them Stiles’s room. Lydia and Aiden showed up a few minutes later, they said Lydia heard something - Stiles’s voice through the stereo they were listening to music on and they came here. We all decided to split up and look for Stiles after calling Derek and Allison. We all decided to go to the station to tell my dad after Lydia told us that Stiles’s jeep was missing from the driveway when she and Aiden got there. When we got to the station, my dad looked surprise to see Scott, Isaac, Derek, and I there. Once we told him what happened, he ordered deputy Parrish to get an APB out on Stiles and his jeep, he assigned another deputy to get a list of all the industrial basements in the town, before pulling the four of us into his office where we told him all the supernatural details that we couldn’t tell everyone else.  
Soon, deputy Parrish told us that they found Stiles’s jeep at the hospital, but when we got there, he wasn’t anywhere to be found and his jeep was dead. While Lydia and Aiden stayed in Stiles’s room, Scott and Derek took the roof of the hospital, while I helped my dad sweep the floors of the hospital for any sign of Stiles. We came up with nothing at the hospital, so Scott decided to stay with us while Derek went to the high school, and Isaac went to go find Allison. While we didn’t know where else to look, Lydia called me to tell us to go Eichen House - it was a supernatural feeling of hers, but we didn’t have any other leads.  
All of us met up at Eichen House and we got access to the basement where Lydia led us to. When we got to the basement and called for my brother, we got no response. We all turned to Lydia for our next move. “I don’t get it,” she sighed. “This has to be it.”  
“Then where is he?” my eyes were quick to fill up with tears. “Lydia, where is he!?” I demanded as I got hold of her arms and shook her to make my point. I felt a pair of arms wrap around me before my dad stepped in between us. I let my head fall against Derek’s chest as he pulled me away. My body wracked with sobs as I let my tired body lean against Derek’s sturdy one. He pulled my head to his chest and my sobs were muffled by the his chest as he led me up the stairs to follow everyone else. When we got upstairs, my dad got a call from Scott’s dad who told us he had found Stiles and that he was bringing him to the hospital.  
I couldn’t bring myself to detach from Derek, but he didn’t seem to mind. He told my dad he’d bring me to the hospital and we’d meet him there. When we got to Derek’s car, he set me down in the passenger’s seat before getting into the car himself. My body was shaking due to the sobs I was holding back. I found my hands shaking more than they ever have before and while Agent McCall wouldn’t lie about something like this, I have to see Stiles to feel at peace. I saw Derek lay his hand over the console to me, hesitantly, I placed my smaller, shakier hand in his and he wrapped closed his hand around mine. “He’s all right,” he reminded me. “He’s at the hospital and he’s safe now.”  
“I don’t know what’s going on Derek,” I shook my head, looking down in my lap. “He hasn’t been getting sleep, he’s sleepwalking, sleep driving, got to wherever the hell he found himself, and I don’t know how to help him. I can’t help him now,” I muttered the last part to myself.  
“The doctors will look him over and he’ll be okay,” he gave my hand a reassuring squeeze. “And if there’s something wrong, they’ll fix him.”  
We pulled into the parking lot of the hospital and we emerged from Derek’s car. When he got to my side, I pulled his hand to mine, not because I wanted to hold his hand, but because I needed support right now. Derek handed me off to my dad as soon as we found him and he led me to the room Stiles was in. The moment I saw him laying in that bed, alive and safe, I sprinted over to him and enveloped him in a hug and he reciprocated, holding onto me for dear life. “I’m so glad you’re okay,” I cried.  
“I-I’m sorry,” he shook his head against my shoulder.  
“Don’t be, you didn’t know what you were doing. You’re safe now,” I reassured him.  
I was reluctant to let go when the doctors had to run some tests, but I promised I’d be back tomorrow. When I returned with my father, Melissa told us she had done some digging, studying Stiles’s symptoms and my dad revealed he had been doing the same thing. I hated to admit it, but I had too. We all came up with the same symptoms, confusion, sleep walking, dissociative, night terrors, and insomnia. A lot of the symptoms my mother had before she got dementia. I didn’t want to admit it, but I knew. Of course I knew. This illness is the reason I got into medicine. I’ve just been too stubborn to admit it. Stiles was showing the signs and symptoms of frontotemporal dementia.  
I called Scott and told him we’d be be running some tests and after school, he showed up to come support Stiles. The MRI took about 45 minutes and when we got the brain scans, we were looking at what we were afraid to find. Stiles’s frontal lobe had began to shrink and the temporal lobe was well on its way to doing the same thing. I had to step out of the room to collect myself before Stiles came out of the MRI. I couldn’t let him see me like this, I know it would make this harder for him. Scott wasn’t in the waiting room when I got out, and I figured he had to take a walk himself. A power surge hit the hospital and sent me back into the room.  
“Where’s Stiles?” my dad questioned as he looked out to the empty MRI machine.  
“Where did he go?” I looked to Melissa and my father.  
“The power went off and he just wasn’t there,” Melissa explained.  
“Did you see him leave?” my dad asked me.  
“No, the power went off for a moment and I just came back in.”  
The night was spent looking for Stiles again. His jeep wasn’t in the parking lot and the power surge had been caused by electrical issues on the roof. The parking lot became flooded with water somehow and it got an electrical charge from a cord that had fallen down from the roof. A paramedic, some visitors, and Isaac were electrocuted. Isaac wasn’t healing like he should’ve been. Derek told me when he found Isaac, he wasn’t breathing and he had burn marks all along the side of his neck and body. I assumed that this was just going to take longer to heal, but with the way he was looking, I didn’t think that was right. Scott told me that Kira had put out the electrical charge just using her hand, which confirmed that she was a kitsune, but we still didn’t know what kind though.

Two days had passed and Stiles was still missing, and the only thing my father and I got from him was a text message telling us he was okay and not to worry about him, but he must know that’s impossible. At my nights at the hospital, I frequented around Isaac’s room to check on him, but he looked the same as when he was admitted. Derek had asked me to sneak him in to take some of Isaac’s pain and Scott did the same. I hadn’t felt well enough to go to school, I couldn’t focus on anything other than my twin brother who was roaming around God knows where as his brain deteriorates. Everyone had been trying to think of where Stiles might be to try and find him and although I felt like I was out of the loop, I knew that it was for the best because I was in no position to be somewhere where I needed a clear mind.  
I had called Derek almost every night Stiles was gone. Without hesitation, he would come over and listen to me relentlessly worry about Stiles and reassure me that they would find him. He even found my taser at the power station and brought it back to me. Dad had been working long hours, he barely left the station and I didn’t blame him. He would call on me to check in and I would go to the station to check on him, but our answers never changed, we were always responding with either a shrug or a shake of the head.  
“I feel so pathetic,” I muttered to Derek that night as we lay side by side on my bed. “Crying all the time, calling you all the time just so I can cry to someone,” I breathed a laugh.  
“I don’t mind it,” Derek told me with a small smile. “Your brother is missing and he’s…he has dementia, you have every right to worry and cry.”  
I turned my head to look at Derek with my teary eyes. “I don’t know what we’re going to do when he comes back,” I whispered. “When he comes back, what kind of life is he going to have? We have to put him in the hands of an all around the clock caregiver, he’s only going to keep getting worse, and I don’t think I can watch that happen to someone I love,” I faced the ceiling again as I covered my face with my hands as a new rack of sobs passed through me. “Not again.”  
Memories of my mother on her bad days flooded my mind. She couldn’t remember who Stiles and I were to save her life. She would ask us what two kids were doing in her room before she told us to leave before we ruined something in the room. I can’t deal with Stiles doing the same thing to me, because when our mom did it to us, at least we had each other. Now I’m going to have no one. My dad won’t feel like he can tell me how he’s really feeling when Stiles lashes out at us, despite the fact that I’m older. I won’t have anyone to turn to who gets it and I can’t let my dad know the true extent of my own emotional distress because I know he’s going to be feeling 10x worse than I am after watching the woman he loved be conquered by the same illness and watching his son follow in her footsteps.  
Derek wrapped his arms around my torso and pulled me into his chest as I continued to cry. “I’m sorry,” I told him. “I don’t know why I just keep bursting out crying.” I felt guilty for making Derek stay here and listen to me wail all night. I knew he wouldn’t want to upset me more by telling me he wanted to leave, so he was just sticking it out.  
“Stop apologizing,” he told me firmly, but gently as I put my head against the crook of his neck and shoulder. “I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else right now.”  
“Why?” I couldn’t help but wonder. “Why wouldn’t you want to be anywhere else?”  
“Because I want to be here for you and help you as much as I can.”  
I felt a wave of exhaustion hit me as I settled in Derek’s arms and before I could stop myself, I was spiralling into sleep.


	31. Chapter 31

“Stiles!” I called as I rushed to the pathway where Scott told me to meet him. He told me that Stiles came back to school and they were at the path the cross-country team used to practice. When I got there, I found police and paramedics there. “What happened?” I asked Scott as I looked around for my brother.  
“Just an accident with coach,” he answered. “He’ll be all right.”  
I couldn’t help but wonder why something went wrong the moment Stiles showed up. I wasn’t saying that he intentionally harmed someone, but as far as I know he hadn’t been marked by the oni. As I thought about it more earlier today, I realized he had never been in the same room as them before. At the party, he wasn’t there and at Scott’s house, he wasn’t there. Allison said they were looking for someone possessed and I couldn’t help but find that Stiles getting sick and the oni showing up at the same time as that, slightly worrisome. I didn’t know exactly what was happening, but I don’t think that anyone had made any of those connections yet.   
I nodded at Scott’s update on coach before I finally found my brother with our dad. I raced over and the second he turned to me, I tackled him in the tightest hug I’ve ever given him. “You’re okay,” this thought brought the slightest smile to my lips but it was quickly removed as I couldn’t help but think about the next time he’d wander off.  
“I’m okay,” he sighed as we pulled away.  
“Where have you been?” I asked, hoping he’d remember, but like I expected, he didn’t. “I don’t like when you leave like that, Mischief.” I knew he couldn’t control it - he didn’t even know what he was doing, but I just couldn’t stand to see my brother like this.  
“I-I’m sorry,” his eyes pooled with tears. “I-I don’t know how to stop it.”  
I shook my head as my eyes became glassy as well. “Don’t be,” I held his shoulders. “It’s not your fault, okay?”  
A bomb threat cut our reunion short as the police were called to the parking lot where the school busses were. Before I could join Stiles and Scott, they both stopped me.  
“You should stay here,” Scott told me.  
“Why?” my eyebrows pulled together.  
“It could be really dangerous,” Stiles sighed.  
“But you guys are going.”  
“Please, I’m going to come back. I promise.”  
I was hesitant, knowing that Stiles didn’t have complete control over that.  
“I’ll make sure of it,” Scott added.  
“Fine,” I sighed. “But we have to talk sometime,” I said to my brother.  
“And we will, I promise.”  
After giving them a hug, I sent them on their way. Instead of going home, I decided to head to the police station to wait for my dad. I wanted to talk to him about Stiles and the possibility of the him being possessed. He had been going missing and when he came to, he never knew where he went or how he got there. He and the oni never seemed to be in the same room and since they were looking for someone who wasn’t themselves, Stiles might fit that description. My theory was very raw, but I think I could be on to something. While I know I should go to Scott first with these things, I wanted to try and ease any stress that Stiles’s diagnosis had given him. I didn’t know for sure how his possible dementia and the oni were connected, but they had to be somewhere because the timing of both were a little too suspicious.  
When I got to the station, I noticed everyone rushing around a little more than usual. I stopped a deputy, my eyes roaming around the room as I was speaking, “Hey, I was just looking for my d…erek?” my brows pulled together at the sight of Derek and Argent handcuffed to the bench.  
I rushed over, leaving the deputy to go do whatever he was going to before I stopped him. “What happened?” I asked once I knelt down before them.  
“Stiles-“  
“Katashi,” Derek cut Argent off. “The gang member Argent went to see was murdered and Argent was framed for it,” he let out a sigh at the last part of the sentence.  
“And you?”  
“I was with Argent when he got arrested, they suspect that I have something to do with it too.”  
“That might not be why we’re here,” Argent interjected. “I think there’s another reason why we’re here, but I haven't figured it out yet.”  
I walked over to the nearest deputy, “You need to let them go, they haven’t done anything wrong. My father will understand,” I reasoned and I watched as the deputy did as I asked. “That was surprisingly easy,” I commented. Once Argent was let go, I could see the panic in his face as well as Derek’s as the atmosphere of the room had changed and become a nervous one. I watched as Derek focused in on something and I sat next to him. “Derek, what is it? What do you hear?”   
He didn’t answer, all he did was tell Argent to get down as he pushed him to the ground and pulled me under his body. The windows of my father’s office that we were sat in front of exploded from the inside out, sending shards of glass and wood all across the room. My body was protected by Derek’s but I noticed some people had been launched to the ground from the impact of the bomb. The scream that ripped out of me was drowned out by the sound of the explosion.  
Once the station fell quiet, I felt Derek slowly pull himself off of my back. It was dark in the station due to all the electricity being knocked out. I looked to Argent who was on the ground, he was okay but I found an abundance of deputies that were not. I looked over to Derek just as his body left mine. His eyes were shut as he panted. I found maybe about 100 shards and tiny pieces of glass sticking out of his back from the impact of the blast. “Derek,” I took his head in my hands as his head began to loll to one side.  
“I’m okay,” he nodded, trying to open his eyes but they fell shut again.  
I watched Argent get up from the ground as I put Derek’s head on my shoulder to rest. “Go check on them, tell me if you find someone without a pulse, I’m going to call an ambulance and my dad.”  
Argent nodded as he headed off, helping up some deputies and checking on others as I made the call. When I called my dad, he told me that he, Scott, and Stiles were already on their way. The bomb threat at school was only a decoy for the bomb in the station. What they thought was a bomb at the school turned out to be my father’s desk name plate which led them to the police station.  
“Derek,” I called, patting his face. He lifted his head slightly and I watched as his eyes barely opened to meet mine. I held onto his arms to steady him as he held onto me for support. “Are you crazy?” I questioned him, kind of angry for him putting his life in danger again for me. “You saved my life,” I let the other emotion I was feeling, gratitude, show. “Again,” I could help but smirk. Derek sent me the best smile he could in this state.  
My dad burst in through the entrance of the station but stopped short as he saw majority of his deputies bloody and some unconscious. Scott and Stiles were right behind him before they all jumped into action. “Come on,” I helped Derek stand up. “We have to get that glass out of your back.”  
“Giselle,” I felt my dad’s hand on my arm. I turned to him just as he pulled me in for a hug. I let go of Derek, making sure he was stable enough to stand on his own before returning the hug. “I was so worried,” my father whispered to me.  
“You didn’t have to be,” I shook my head. “Derek, um, he took most of the hit.”  
My dad turned to Derek and I watched as his face fell at the amount of glass that was shoved in his back. “Thank you,” he sincerely told Derek who only nodded in response.  
“Go,” I told my dad as the sound of sirens flooded the station. “It’s the paramedics, I’ll take care of Derek and they’ll help you with the deputies.” My dad nodded as he headed in the direction of one of his deputies. I found Scott taking a deputy’s hand who was laying on the ground with Stiles crouched beside him. Just as I was about to take Derek to the back of the station, Kira stopped us in our tracks as she came from the side entrance.  
“Are Scott and Stiles here?” she asked me quickly.  
“Yeah, down there-” as soon as I finished, Kira was heading down the hallway. “What’s wrong!?” I called.  
“The oni are coming!” is the only thing she said before disappearing down the corner.  
When I got Derek settled, I pulled out a pair of tweezers that I always kept in my bag. “They’re not the most professional, but they’ll have to do,” I sighed. “This is going to suck,” I informed him. Derek nodded, silently telling me to get it over with. Once I started pulling out the pieces in his shoulder, I found Scott, Stiles, and Kira rushing past the doorway and out of the station. Seeing them rush out together after Kira told me the oni were coming only made my suspicions grow and it reminded me that Argent was saying something about Stiles before Derek cut him off.  
“Hey,” I began. “What was Argent going to say? About Stiles?”  
“What do you mean?” Derek asked, keeping his head forward.  
“Did he have something to do with you guys getting arrested?”  
“No,” Derek glanced over his shoulder at me. “Why would you say that?”  
“What was Argent going to say, then?” I replied.  
“Nothing, we were just talking about him before the cops showed up, that’s all.” _Was there something happening that I didn’t know of?_ Although I was skeptical of his response, I decided to stay quiet. “Why did you come here?” Derek asked me.  
“I wanted to talk to my father,” I answered. “I don’t think we have the full story.”  
Derek paused for a moment. “What do you mean?”  
“I mean,” I drawled as I pulled out the last piece of glass from his shoulder before moving to his mid-back. “What if Stiles isn’t really sick?” I hypothesized out loud. “When he showed up at the school, coach was hurt and the last time I checked, dementia doesn’t make you almost kill people.” He flinched, “All I know is coach ended up with an arrow in his stomach. No one will tell me anything anymore,” I rolled my eyes. “He and the oni are never in the same room,” I added. “We all know that the oni want to find someone who isn’t themselves - who’s possessed.”  
“Right,” Derek replied, speaking up.  
“He, Scott, and Kira just rushed out of here after Kira told us the oni were coming.”  
“You think he’s possessed?”  
“I-I don’t know,” I shook my head. “Maybe?” I sighed. “All I’m saying is, Stiles may not be sick like we think he is. His diagnosis and the arrival of the oni are too coincidental.” I pulled out the last piece of glass and once I announced it, Derek stood up from sitting in front of me. “What do you think?” I asked.  
Derek’s eyes fell to the ground. “I think…” he paused for a moment. “…you should talk to Scott,” he spoke cautiously.  
My brows pulled together as I found myself taking a step back from him. “I should talk to Scott?” I quizzed and Derek nodded. “The last time you said that it was because you knew something that you didn’t know how to explain,” I crossed my arms, but Derek stayed silent. “What do you know, Derek?” I demanded.  
“Giselle,” he reached out to grab my hand. “I don’t think-”  
With those words alone, I pulled my hand out of his grasp. “If you don’t think you can tell me something about my brother then fine, I’ll go talk to Scott.” I grabbed my things and called Scott, telling him I wanted to know what was going on with Stiles. Reluctantly, he told me to come to the animal clinic to talk to him.  
When I got there, I saw both Kira and Stiles passed out on the floor. “What did you do!?” I demanded as I bent down to my brother.  
“He’s going to be out for some time,” Deaton told me.  
“What did you do?” I repeated, angrier.  
“Giselle, it’s going to wear off. You need to sit down,” Scott told me.  
“Tell me everything,” I stood up. “Right now.” Scott proceeded to tell me that Stiles was possessed by a nogitsune, a trickster spirit. He was the one who got coach hurt and whenever Stiles would go away, he wouldn’t remember where he went because while the nogitsune was present, Stiles wasn’t. Everyone was working hard to find a cure for Stiles, but no one had any luck. “So everyone knew,” I laughed humourlessly.  
“Yeah,” Scott admitted timidly.  
“Even my dad?”  
“No, except for him. And you.”  
“Why am I not surprised? Is there anything else?” I folded my arms.  
“He may not have frontotemporal dementia.” Without another word, I exited the clinic despite Scott’s pleas for me to stay and talk to him so I could return to the station. All the severely injured patients had been transported to the hospital and the rest of the deputies were trying to clean up the bits of glass and wood from the floor. “Where’s Derek?” I asked my dad.  
“In the holding cell with Mr. Argent, why?”  
“I just have to talk to him.” I know that my anger would be better to sleep on, but I was already angry and I couldn’t decide if I was angrier with Scott or Derek. While that was a decision I could think more about when I got home, I had a lot to say to Derek right now.  
When I got to the other side of the station, I found Derek and Argent on opposite sides of the holding cell. I stopped at the doorway when both of them turned their attention to me. I walked over to Derek with folded arms and a look that I’m sure could kill. I had to keep my voice down because while I wasn’t exactly angry at Argent, I didn’t want him hearing any of the things I had to say to Derek. “Why didn’t you tell me anything?” I questioned.  
“I couldn’t,” Derek shook his head, leaning against the bars that separated us.  
“Why not?” I fired back immediately. “You knew how upset I was when I was under the impression that Stiles was sick. You were with me every night that he was missing and you knew how terrified I was for him,” I found myself quickly losing my cool, but I remained quiet. “If anyone was going to be the one to tell me about Stiles being possessed, I’d assumed that it would’ve been you. He’s my brother, Derek-“  
“That’s why I couldn’t tell you,” he cut me off. “You couldn’t handle the thought of him being sick, I couldn’t tell you that he was possessed by some dark fox spirit that he may not be able to get rid of.”  
I shook my head, chuckling to save face for the tears that clouded my vision. “I deserved to know. My dad-“ I cut myself off. “Our dad deserved to know what was really going on with his son.”  
Derek didn’t say anything for a moment as we just stood there, looking at each other. “You’re right,” he nodded. “You deserved to know.”  
“I did,” I confirmed. “I did deserve to know. And so does my dad.” When Derek had nothing to say, I couldn’t help but feel betrayed in a way. “I can’t believe that you let me sit there and cry to you about Stiles when you knew everything.”  
“I only did it because I didn’t want you to be more upset than you already were.”  
“Well, I think I’m way more upset now than I already was before.” And with that, I exited the room and caught a ride with my dad.  
I lay in bed that night as I couldn’t sleep. Deaton had injected Stiles with a poison, letharia vulpina. It poisoned the spirit in Stiles but it didn’t save him. I realized that Derek told me that Stiles might not be able to be saved from this spirit and although I believed in Scott to find a cure, I couldn’t help but be livid with him as well. Dad had asked me what I had to go in to see Derek for and on the way home I filled him in. I couldn’t decide whether he was angry like I was, confused, or just distraught. We were still going down to LA to see a specialist to ensure that what we were seeing from Stiles’s brain scans really were showing signs of frontotemporal dementia or if it was maybe something else.  
Everybody kept me and my father in the dark this whole time about what was happening with Stiles, but reflecting on it, I wasn’t surprised. I was the one they all told to stay out of things when I tried to help and although I thought things would be different when it came to my own brother, I guess I was wrong. I didn’t know what to do anymore to get them to trust me and let me help them.  
Derek was the one I was most upset with. He watched and listened to me worry and stress over my brother and he just sat there and listened to me, not even bothering to tell me the truth. While I understood that he didn’t want to make me more upset, he should’ve known that I would be a lot more angry about the fact that he kept it from me and pretended that nothing was wrong. I trusted him to be there for me and part of being there for me should entail telling me the truth no matter what.


	32. Chapter 32

The next evening, Stiles, our dad, and I drove to Eichen House in silence. Stiles had made the decision to be admitted into the mental institution before he hurt anybody else. He wanted to stay in there as long as it took until there was a cure for him, but he was only allowed a few days in there. Dad didn’t like the idea, but he decided to listen to Stiles. He was still wandering off and nobody knows where he would find himself next, or who he would find to hurt next.  
When we pulled up to the building, Scott pulled up on his motorbike behind us, causing the three of us to sigh. “Why didn’t you tell me?” Scott questioned Stiles.  
“To avoid something like this,” my dad replied.  
“It’s only for 72 hours,” Stiles added.  
“This is the same place that Barrow came from - the guy who had a tumour inside of him full of flies,” Scott pointed out before turning to my dad and I. “You don’t know enough yet.”  
“I think we do,” I replied with folded arms.  
“Listen,” my dad stepped in. “I saw a brain scan that looked like my wife’s and it terrifies me.” Dad continued to tell Scott about our plans to go to LA.  
“Why are you putting him in here?” Scott questioned.  
“He’s not,” Stiles spoke up. “I am.” Scott told Stiles about all the places that Deaton and Argent were calling and all the things he and the rest of the group were researching to try and find a cure. Stiles was terrified of hurting anybody else and I knew that there would be nothing to change his mind about checking into Eichen House tonight.   
As the three of us headed towards the gate, I felt Scott pull me back by my arm. “What?” I raised a brow.  
“I know that you're still upset, but you can’t let him do this.”  
“Stiles can’t stand the thought of hurting someone else. I can’t change his mind and neither can you.”  
When I tried to walk away, Scott stopped me again. “What can I do to make this better?” he asked me. “To make you forgive me - to forgive us?”  
“I just want to start being in the know,” I let out with an exasperated sigh. “It’s all I’ve wanted ever since I found out about everything and no one has let me do anything to help because it’s too dangerous.”  
“We’re just trying to keep you safe.”  
“I should’ve known about Stiles long before I found out for myself. He’s my brother and no one told me anything. I just don’t think that I can trust you right now.”  
I caught up with my brother and father just as they entered the facility. We were escorted to an office where my dad had to sign some papers as the nurse explained the daily procedures and rules to my brother. Our dad had tried one last time to get Stiles to change his mind, but it was no use.  
After he gave our dad a hug, Stiles turned to me. “You’ll be out soon,” I said. “They’ll figure something out.”  
“I know,” Stiles replied before he pulled me into a hug.  
“I love you, Mischief,” I said as I pulled away.  
“I love you too, Benny,” Stiles gave me a small smile before he was led by the nurse down the hallway and to his room, leaving me and dad behind.

The next morning, dad and I were up bright and early and on the way to LA. We had been on the road for an hour, making small talk with one another. To be honest, I think dad was afraid to talk to me because of how angry I was, which amused me but only slightly.  
“You can’t stay mad at them forever,” my dad said an hour and 15 minutes into our drive.  
“Yes I can,” I disagreed as I looked out the window.  
“No you can’t.”  
“Yes I can dad,” my head whipped around to look at him. “Not letting me help them fight the bad guys is one thing, but not telling us about Stiles is a whole other topic.”  
“They had good intentions,” my dad tried to reason with me, but I wasn’t having it.  
“Good intentions would be telling us that our family member is possessed by an evil spirit. Keeping it from us for as long as they could to “not upset us even more” is the complete opposite of good intentions.”  
“You can’t stay mad at your friends, especially not when Stiles needs us.”  
“I can be if I want to,” I challenged.  
“No you can’t,” dad chuckled at my attempts to prove my point. “Definitely not at Derek.”  
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I looked to my father disapprovingly. Dad simply gave me a look that insinuated that something was going on between Derek and I. “There’s nothing to-“ I mimicked the look. “-at. We just did research together and helped the others.”  
“And each other.”  
“And that’s all ruined now,” my gaze returned to the window.  
“Giselle, you have to start looking at things from their perspective. We have known of this world for all of five minutes and we don’t have the abilities that they do. They’re just trying to keep us safe and make this as easy as possible for us.”  
“I want to make things easier for them too.”  
“And you do it by reading the articles, putting things together, behind the scenes.”  
“I’m not smart like Stiles, dad,” I admitted defeatedly. “I can’t put things together like he can - I’m not clever like him.”  
“You’re smart like you,” dad told me. “And if they’ve kept you around for this long, you must be doing something right.” My silence was my response. “Because you are hard to keep around,” he joked and I couldn’t stop the laugh before it escaped past my lips.

Dr. Wilson had put up Stiles’s brain scans up on display for the three of us to look at. He sombrely confirmed that what we were looking at was indeed frontotemporal dementia. As the specialist continued to talk to my dad about the condition and the specifics of what it would entail and courses of action to take in caring for his now ill teenage son, I studied the scans closer.  
They were similar to mom’s scans, more than I remember. I ran my finger in the space between the front of Stiles’s skull and where his brain now was. I was able to fit two and a half fingers in the space between. “Dad,” I called absentmindedly.  
“What is it, honey?” he came over to me along with Dr. Wilson.  
I took his hand and held up his fingers between the space. “Two and a half,” I mentally noted before I moved his hand up higher to the top of Stiles’s head where the top portion of his frontal lobe had shrunken as well. “Two fingers.” I let go of dad’s hand as I continued to study the scan and compared it to mom’s scans. They looked similar and although my memory was very vague of her scans, I noticed other factors of Stiles’s brain scan that looked the same.  
“Giselle, what is it sweetheart?” dad asked me once Dr. Wilson gave us a moment alone.  
“You said that Stiles’s scans looked like mom’s scans,” I said, getting a good look at the x-rays in front of me. “What if they’re identical?”

We got to the hospital and Melissa gave us access to my mom’s brain scans. I held both of them up to the light side by side and the similarities between the two scans were brought to my eyes as well as my father’s and Melissa’s. “These are the exact same scans,” I concluded as I looked to the parents. “There’s just different names on them.”  
“The nogitsune is a trickster spirit - a dark one,” I reminded the both of them. “What if this is just another trick?”  
“Why would it do that?” Melissa asked.  
“It feeds off of chaos and strife,” I answered. “And what better way to cause that then to give a terminal illness to a loved one?”

The next day, I got to the station. My dad had convinced me to talk to Argent and Derek with him. We needed help because we weren’t the most experienced with the supernatural and the two people in the holding cell were.  
My father was already in his office and as I was on the way in, I found deputy Parrish, who was holding Argent’s taser talking to Argent and Derek.  
“This thing has enough power to jumpstart a 747,” Parrish told Argent, talking about the taser.  
“This property belongs to me and the charges were dropped,” Argent defended himself. “Although I’m not exactly sure who’s responsible for that,” he commented to Derek.  
“My father is,” I answered as I approached them. “He asked me to take care of this,” I said to Parrish.  
“Giselle, this is a few watts away from being a lightsaber,” he replied as I held my hand out for the taser.  
“I know, but my father expects these men to be released with everything they came with - minus the charges.” Reluctantly, Parrish handed over the taser before leaving the three of us alone.  
“Thank you,” Argent said as I handed him the weapon.  
“We need your help,” I told him. My eyes glanced to Derek’s only briefly. “Both of you,” I sighed. I led the two of them to my dad’s office where he and the brain scans were waiting for us. Dad explained to them what we found from our trip to LA and what we discovered about my mother’s and brother’s brain scans. “They looked similar and then I noticed that the distances between the frontal lobe to the skull were the same,” I picked up where my dad left off as he handed me the scans. I lay Stiles’s brain scan under my mom’s one, allowing the boys to see. “They were exactly the same,” I held them up to the light.  
“I’m guessing this isn’t possible,” Derek said from beside me as he, Argent, and I looked at the scans.  
“Not even in a parallel universe,” I answered as I put the scans onto the desk.  
“The trickster’s still playing tricks,” Argent commented.  
“Why this one?” Derek leaned against the desk.  
“The nogitsune feeds off of chaos and strife,” I replied. “This,” I glanced over to him. “Caused a lot of chaos and strife,” I enunciated my words to make the same point I made yesterday to him in the cell.  
“It could also be a tactic to defeat Stiles’s mind and not just his body,” my dad chimed in. “I was thinking about something one of my officers said to me in the army: If you want to defeat your enemy, you don’t take away their courage, you take away their hope.”  
“You don’t look like a man who gives up hope easily.”  
“But Stiles might,” my dad pointed out. “If this spirit is using his mother’s illness as some sick, psychological trick, then this has to be a fight for his mind.”  
“You know he’s left people severely injured.”  
“And severely dead,” Derek added.  
“That’s not Stiles,” I defended my brother. “There’s a very important distinction between him and the nogitsune.”  
“And we need your help getting rid of the nogitsune,” dad added. “We need people who are experienced in this. We need your help to stop him.”  
After our talk, Argent called Allison to find the most non-lethal weapons they had at home so they would be ready when they got there. When we got to Argent’s apartment, Allison led us to her father’s office where there were various tasers, ropes, and handcuffs laid out on the table.  
“What’s the plan here?” my dad asked as Argent and Allison started to pack their bags.  
“Our best shot is Derek catching Stiles’s scent at Eichen House, especially if he went through something stressful there,” Argent answered.  
“Should we all be going to the same place?”  
“Where else has Stiles been showing up?”  
“School,” I supplied.  
“Hospital,” Allison added.  
“Hold on,” Derek butt in. “We did this already. He disappeared, we started looking for him, and we walked right into a trap at the hospital.”  
“He’s getting us to repeat the same moves,” Argent simplified.  
“So do we wait for him to come to us?” I looked over at him.  
“We can’t,” Derek shook his head. “When the sun goes down, the oni will be looking for him.”  
“Scott and Kira are working on that right now. They’re talking to Kira’s mom and dad at the school.”  
“That’s the problem,” Argent said. “We’re trying to outfox the fox.”  
“I’ll understand if anybody wants to back out,” my dad offered and we all looked to one another.  
“I’m not going to be the first wolf to run from a fox,” Derek reached over and grabbed a taser off of the desk.  
“Apparently, I’m carrying a lightsaber,” Argent extended his taser.  
“That makes two of us,” I smirked as I did the same.  
“Dad, you, Giselle, and Derek at Eichen House,” Allison assigned. “Sheriff,” she glanced to my father. “It’s you and me in the hospital. If any of us run into him, we both have one of his family members to maybe anchor Stiles. We all meet in the school,” with that, Allison was off with my father trailing behind her as I began to lead Argent and Derek out.  
“Making sure you have a few lethal options just in case?” Derek called to Argent. When I turned to him, I found him shoving clips in his pockets as he loaded a gun. “I like to be prepared,” he replied, catching my glare.

We walked through Eichen House, Argent had made up a story that got the three of us past the front desk. We walked through about half of the building in search of Stiles but we found absolutely nothing on him.  
“This building is bigger than I thought,” I muttered as I scanned the faces of each patient I passed. “And we’ve only just started.”  
“Have you picked up anything?” Argent asked Derek.  
“Nothing. It’s almost like he wasn’t even here.”  
“Perfect,” I rolled my eyes as I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket.  
I pulled it out to find a message from the home security app on my phone. My dad had put in the cameras and alarm system when Stiles started sleep walking. The message on my phone told me there was movement detected in the bedroom security camera. I opened up the app to see the footage the camera was taking of the room and right before me I saw Stiles sitting on his bed. “I think I got something,” I called to the boys who were a few feet away from me. They returned to my side and looked over my shoulders to see Stiles with dark circles around his eyes and his hair looking more tousled than it usually was. I zoomed into the camera as he looked right at the lens and sent it a creepy wave.  
“It’s him,” Argent said.  
“The nogitsune.”

When we got to the house, Stiles was gone and all that was left behind was the chess board that we used to explain the supernatural to my dad. All the pieces still had their sticky notes attached to them, but they were all moved in different places. Derek’s name was on the king as he was surrounded by the twins and Peter. My dad pointed out that the piece with Derek’s name on it was one move away from being in checkmate. Allison pointed out that maybe it was a message from the nogitsune telling us where he was right now.  
“Night’s falling,” Derek pointed out once the idea of going after the nogitsune at the loft was brought up.  
“This couldn’t sound anymore like a trap,” Argent added.  
“Maybe it’s not,” my dad replied. “The nogitsune is a trickster, the killing lacks a motive so what if it’s just a byproduct.”  
“If you’re saying it won’t kill us, I’m not too confident in that,” a crossed-armed Derek said.  
“I think he’s right,” I backed my dad up. “The nogitsune wants chaos and because we don’t know what is a trick and what isn’t a trick, he’s expecting chaos to follow this confusion.”  
“It wants irony,” my dad added. “It wants to play a trick - a joke. All we have to do is come up with a new punchline.”


	33. Chapter 33

I swung open the door of Derek’s loft as my dad stood beside me. Stiles stood before us with his back turned to us, slowly he turned around and greeted us. The setting sun dripped in through the wall of windows which illuminated Stiles’s face. He had dark circles around his eyes from the lack of sleep he’d been getting. His eyes were filled with apprehension, not knowing how my father and I would react towards him. Inside the apprehension I saw the sadness that was burrowed. His shoulders were slouched and his hands were shaking as they lay limply at his sides. My dad simply responded with pulling a pair of handcuffs out. “You’re going to handcuff me?” Stiles asked shakily.  
“If my son is still here,” dad began as we sauntered closer to him. “If there’s a part of him standing here in front of us, he’ll let me put these handcuffs on him willingly, and he’ll come with me.”  
“Because he knows that we’re here to protect him,” I finished once we stood in front of him. “From himself and from others.” I watched as a teary-eyed Stiles put his hands out for my dad to cuff. His head dropped and I tightened my grip on my taser, ready to attack if it was really the nogitsune and he tried something.  
Once dad had cuffed Stiles, I watched as Stiles slowly rose his head, but the look in his eyes told me that he was not Stiles. I pulled my dad’s arm back, prompting him to move away as I got ready to attack. “You’re not my son,” my dad spat and the nogitsune pulled against the handcuffs until they broke off.  
I watched the smirk on my brother’s face as Allison, Argent, and Derek made their presence known. When Allison tried to use her taser gun on him, the nogitsune went unharmed as he grabbed onto the wires and tugged on them enough to send the taser out of Allison’s hand. I got my taser ready and after deflecting his arm that he used to try and get the taser out of my hand, I landed a hit right across his face that spun him around. He held his face as he turned away from us. I watched anxiously, waiting for his next move.  
Suddenly, he spun to me, reaching for my taser again, but this time when I deflected his right hand, his left one stopped the rotation of my arms by grabbing onto one of them to twist it behind my back, forcing me to drop the taser to the ground as I followed it, dropping to my knees. Instantaneously, Derek had shifted and gone to attack Stiles, but he was easily thrown into a wall, but everyone stopped when Argent pulled out his gun and pointed it to my brother.  
“Argent, listen to me,” my dad began. “Don’t do this.”  
“Why not?” Argent questioned almost robotically. My arm wasn’t broken but it was quite sore. Derek had gotten to me and helped me to my feet as our eyes stayed locked on Argent. “I’ve done it before to many different creatures. I could easily add a nogitsune to the list,” the hunter added.  
I took a step forward, pressing the taser to his arm while my dad pointed his gun at his head. “Don’t do this,” I warned.  
“You’re not going to shoot my son,” my dad promptly told him.  
“You said it yourself Sheriff,” he nodded to the nogitsune. “That’s not your son.”  
“Put the gun down, Argent,” I demanded, although I knew my lack of authority did nothing to frighten him, but the taser against his arm might.  
My dad had lost his cool as he began to shout at Argent to stop entertaining the fact of shooting his child. At this point, I had exchanged my taser for the gun as my dad continued to yell. Allison put a stop to it all, predicting that this is what the nogitsune wanted. I realized that the sun had gone down which meant the oni were close to come.  
“I’m glad you all have your guns out,” Stiles smirked. “Because you’re not here to kill me. You’re here to protect me.” I watched as dark figures in the distance became more detailed as the black dust had become the oni. They were wielding their swords, ready to claim the possessed soul of my brother. Stiles stepped behind us as our attention turned to the oni. I stood beside Derek as I kept my gun held high while Derek bared his fangs to our new enemy of attention. The oni were relentless as they tried to get to Stiles, but we put up a good fight. I heard Derek cry out in pain just as they vanished, despite the fact that it was still nightfall. I found Derek on the floor cradling his shoulder. I bent down and moved his hand to see a deep cut from one of the oni’s swords gracing his shoulder.  
“What happened?” I heard Scott at the doorway.  
“They just vanished,” my dad informed him. “And so did Stiles.”  
Scott and Kira told us the information that they had gotten from Kira’s mother. She, apart from being centuries old, was also a kitsune - a different type from Kira - she had been the one to call on the nogitsune many years as a form of revenge on the people that wronged her and the other Japanese people in the internment camps. She had captured the spirit of the nogitsune in a fly which she kept in a jar and buried it deep in the nemeton. When Scott, Allison, and Stiles sacrificed themselves, they brought power back to the nemeton which gave the nogitsune enough power to reemerge. She also seemed to control the oni in attempts to find the nogitsune and execute him.

By the time Scott finished filling us in, the sun was starting to come up. As everyone was leaving the loft, I saw that the gash on Derek’s shoulder still hadn’t healed. I watched his head turn to look over at me, I simply advised him to put something on it before I left the loft.

The next morning, as I was brushing my teeth, I found myself thinking about the way that Argent seemed almost relentless to pull the trigger. Even though I had insisted that there was a difference in Stiles and the nogitsune, he was still willing to put a bullet through my own brother’s head right in front of me and my dad. The rage almost gave me a headache and made my blood boil right under my skin. The emotion was so strong that it sent my insides into an uncontrollable shiver. I decided to go to tell Argent how I really felt about the reckless decision he almost made. I found myself packing the gun and taser he gave me in my bag before heading over to his apartment, deciding that it wouldn’t hurt if I went over there prepared.  
As I got closer and closer to his door, I felt the rage make my body shake. Just as I raised the hand that held the gun up to knock on the door, Argent had already opened it. I saw the opportunity to pistol whip him into unconsciousness. “Pretty glad my father taught me that,” I smirked.  
I bent down and dragged Argent’s heavy body further into the apartment so I could shut the door. I left him on the floor as I decided to let him know how it feels to be on the other side of the gun. Once I found some rope he had lying around, I set up a chair in the middle of his office before using all of my might to lift him onto the chair before I began to tie his limbs to the arms and legs of the chair. “That was not easy,” I muttered to myself. I heard Argent groan which caused me to turn to look at him over my shoulder. When he saw me, I saw the confusion written all over his face. “You oughta think about shedding a few pounds,” I told him.  
“What are you doing?” he asked before he realized his limbs were tied to the chair.  
“I learned how to do that in Girl Scouts,” I gestured to the knots with a smirk.  
“Giselle, listen to me,” Argent looked up at me. “Whatever’s wrong, I can help you.”  
“Oh I don’t think you can,” I shook my head. “How would you like it, Argent,” I began as I checked the amount of bullets in the clip I currently had in the gun. “If someone held a gun to your precious daughter’s head?” my eyes flickered over the gun and onto the man in front of me. “Wouldn’t make you feel too great, huh?”  
“If this is about Stiles-”  
“It is,” I cut him off as I laughed. “Of course it is,” I stood up from the chair I was leaning against. “Because while you and Allison stay up here, in your pretty little apartment, guarded from anything coming your way, some of us are not that lucky to have that kind of security.” I bent at the waist and got closer to his face as I looked him straight in the eye. “Stiles wouldn’t have been lucky enough to get that kind of security if my father and I weren’t there.”   
Argent remained silent as I stood up and began to saunter around the room. “You were going to kill a man’s child and a sister’s brother in front of them with no remorse,” I said. “How is it so easy for you to do that?” I glanced to him as he tried to keep wiggling from his restraints. “It must be the whole “veteran werewolf hunter” thing,” I laughed once I finally made it in front of him again. “I’m not sure that title’s looking so shiny now that you’ve been tied up and restrained by a Girl Scout.”  
“Whatever’s gotten into your head, this isn’t the way to deal with it.”  
“Oh it is,” I nodded, stopping in front of him again. “It’s how you deal with it, isn’t it?” I smirked in amusement. “I’ve been thinking maybe I should deal with my emotions the same way you seem to deal with them,” I pointed the barrel of the gun at him, lazily. “With a bullet through the problem’s head.”  
“Something is heightening your anger,” he told me. “Whatever’s in your head-”  
“My anger,” I cut him off abruptly. “is still the same,” I finished. “It’s still a fire that burns as bright as it did yesterday.”  
Before Argent could respond, the door to his office burst open causing me to spring up and point my gun towards it. Before me, I found Derek in the doorway. He looked surprised to see me there and although the red wine colour of his shirt worked wonders for his eyes, and the fit of it made his muscles stand out just a little more, the dark circles around his eyes threw off his whole appearance. I couldn’t help but feel all the pain he inflicted which quickly diluted to anger. “Speaking of fire,” I acknowledged his presence.  
“What are you doing?” Derek asked me as he dropped the duffle bag to the floor.  
“Making a point,” I spat as I made my way over to him. “Would you like to take a seat? I’m sure I could make some that you can relate to.”  
“You need to leave,” his tone was threatening.  
“I was here first,” I gave the most childish response I could muster up, knowing it would annoy him. “Leave now before I reconsider giving you the option to do so.”  
I watched Derek smirk before he let his clawed hand cup my face, “Do you really think that’s a good idea?” he questioned as he let his claws slowly feather over the skin of my cheek. While the close proximity of them should make me nervous, all I could focus on was the series of tingles that sent goosebumps all along the side of my neck following his hand moulding to the shape of my cheek.  
I chuckled in response as I let my gun poke against his abs. “My methods of persuasion work pretty fast,” I challenged as I found myself taking a step closer, pushing the gun further in his stomach.  
About an hour later, Derek and I still had Argent tied up. Derek brought some gasoline and covered Argent in it before taunting him with a lighter. He had talked about his revenge fantasy of burning the building to the ground around Argent as Allison watched it all happen. “We’re going to wait for her,” Derek decided. “And we’re going to let her watch.” I heard his footsteps get closer behind me. “It’ll be…romantic,” he paused to find the last word.  
I turned to him with a smirk. I quickly noticed just how close he had gotten to me. “How sweet,” I taunted.  
His breath fanned my face as I took in his features up close, but the only one I could focus on were his lips. I wanted to kiss them badly. Since the moment he showed up, I found myself admiring him as if it was the first time that I’d seen him. It felt as though all of my senses were heightened and I felt no inhibition within me as I openly admired all of his features that I always admired in secret. In several moments I glanced over to him, only to find him already looking at me with dark eyes.  
Derek’s hand found its way to my cheek to cup it. “You made a mistake coming here.”  
“You’re not going to kill me,” I began as I slowly placed the gun in my hand on Argent’s desk beside me. “I already have you figured out.”  
“Do you?” he questioned as his hands gripped the hair at the base of my neck and tilted my head up. “Do you have me all figured out?” he said, barely above a whisper.  
“You couldn’t fathom the thought of hurting me,” I shook my head slowly in his grasp. “I bet the feeling makes you sick to your stomach,” I let my fingertips brush over his abdomen, his thin shirt providing a barrier against the heart racing idea of our skin touching. “It puts a tense in your chest,” I added once the palms of my hands made their way there. “A pain, even,” I finally looked at him with a smirk. “Maybe it makes it hard to breathe,” I whispered as I let my hands wrap around and meet at the back of his neck. I stared at my hands for a moment, basking in the feel of his skin. “So if you’re not going to hurt me,” my eyes flickered up to his. “What are you going to do, Derek?”  
Derek pulled my head up to his before our lips collided. The kiss was passionate, desperate, and left us begging for more. It was everything I thought I would only ever imagine - the soft feel of his lips moving against mine, his hair intertwining with my fingers as I tugged at it, and the way my insides shook with desperation. My head was cradled in his hands perfectly and nothing could ruin this moment. We moved in perfect synchronization almost as if we had done this a million times. I pressed up against him as close as I could to feel the warmth radiating from him, trying to feel as much of him against me as possible. The pull in my heart and the butterflies in my stomach were desperate for me to capture this moment for as long as possible. The kiss quickly became furious, as though at any second, one of us would be ripped from the other.  
The sound of a crash forced us to pull back from each other to find Argent on the ground along with the remains of the chair he had smashed to get out of. I grabbed my gun from the desk as I hopped over it alongside Derek who had transformed. When we landed, Argent was quick to grab onto my arm and twist it in a way so that the barrel of my gun was pointed underneath my chin while he used his own gun to put Derek in the same position.  
“Please don’t do this,” he begged the both of us. “Don’t make me kill you two.”  
I looked to Derek only to find a black substance dripping from his nose. I began to feel lightheaded as my grip on the gun loosened. I fell to the ground, but before I got to it, I was already passed out.

When I woke up, I found myself in Argent’s apartment, in Allison’s bedroom specifically. Memories of everything I did came flooding back. Trying to kill Argent. Derek trying to kill Argent. Kissing Derek. Oh God. It was like everything I was feeling and the things I wanted to do weren’t going through a filter in my head and they were just pouring out of me. When I came out of Allison’s bedroom, I found Derek awake and talking to Argent. Upon my arrival, they turned their heads to me, but Derek couldn’t hold my stare for very long and I found myself incapable of it as well.  
“I’m sorry,” I apologized to Argent. “I don’t know what happened.”  
“Nogitsune flies,” he simply replied.  
“Like the ones in Barrow?”  
“They got into us somehow; the nogitsune wanted more chaos to happen so he heightened our anger to cause it,” Derek explained.  
“They came from Stiles,” Argent continued. “He let them out - it wasn’t just you two who were affected, Isaac and the twins were as well. Isaac’s being possessed by the nogitsune seemed to heal him.”  
“What stopped it?” Derek asked him.  
“Scott told me that they have separated Stiles from the nogitsune taking Stiles’s form - Void Stiles.”  
“S-so he’s okay?” I clarified and Argent nodded.  
“Scott and Lydia went into his mind and got Stiles’s attention off of the nogitsune.”  
“Thank God,” I breathed out in relief.  
“But, the nogitsune - void Stiles - he took Lydia. They’ve been missing for a few hours. I’m not sure why a nogitsune would want with a banshee but we’re just gonna have to figure that out.”  
“I-I should go then, I should go see Stiles.”  
Argent nodded before I left the apartment. Just as the elevator I was in was about to close, a hand stopped it and when the door opened further, I found Derek on the other side. My eyes fell to the ground immediately as he got in next to me. When the elevator shut, it was just us standing in silence. What the hell was I supposed to say to him? We could always blame the kiss on the nogitsune and that could be that - no confession of feelings and no ending the friendship. Our silence now resembled the one we had in his car on the first night he saved me - the sudden awareness I had over my excessive movements, the silence that was begging for interruption, and the way my brain went blank as I desperately tried to think of conversation starters. When we weren’t moving, I found that neither of us had pressed a button.  
“Maybe we should…” I hesitantly reached over and pressed the button for the lobby. Suddenly, before I could catch it, I burst out laughing and Derek joined in with my laughter. “I can’t even believe…” I trailed off, too shy to say it.  
“Me neither,” he shook his head.  
“This is going to make things weird now, isn’t it?” I looked over to him.  
“It doesn’t have to,” he looked back to me. “It was the nogitsune after all.”  
“Y-yeah, yeah exactly,” I waved my hand. “It was just a…supernatural thing.”  
Derek nodded as our eyes stayed locked on each other. Just before I thought we were going to have one of those moments where we’re silent just before we’re making out and tearing each other’s clothes off, the elevator dinged before the door opened and we headed to the parking lot, in silent acquiescence to never mention the kiss ever again.


	34. Chapter 34

“Is it him?” I asked Scott once I got to his house. “Really him?”  
“It is, the oni marked him,” he answered.“Kira’s mom said the oni could find the nogitsune, but it’s too close to dawn now.”  
“I should go see him,” I began to head upstairs but Scott grabbed my arm.  
“I didn’t get to apologize for keeping this from you,” he said. “I shouldn’t have done that - you were right. I’m sorry - I swear we’ll keep you in the know.” I didn’t say anything, I simply pulled Scott into a hug, silently telling him that I forgive him before racing upstairs.  
I found Melissa checking Stiles’s pulse. The both of them turned to me and I could see how exhausted my brother looked. “Mischief?” I said cautiously.  
Stiles nodded as he slowly got up from the bed. “It’s me, Benny.” He reached up behind his ear and pulled it down to show me the oni’s marking, proving he was himself.  
I felt relief flood over me as I rushed over and pulled him into a tight hug. “Thank God,” I cried. “I missed you so much.”  
Stiles told us that there was a girl in Eichen House - Meredith Walker - who might know something that could help us. Kira found me at school that day to tell me that Meredith was here and some head orderlies were trying to take her back to Eichen. After some convincing, we got coach to help us hold off the orderlies as Scott and Stiles got Meredith out of the school. By the time I got out of school, Stiles had figured out where the nogitsune was hiding Lydia. It was a place called Oak Creek - an internment camp Kira’s mom told her daughter and Scott. I got to Allison’s apartment to tell her where we were going tonight.  
“Are you worried about tonight?” Allison asked me as we got our weapons together.  
“A little,” I nodded. “But I have to be brave. I’m fighting for Stiles.”  
She placed her hand over my shaky one, stopping me in the midst of packing the weapons. “You are brave,” she reassured me with a smile. “I don’t think anyone has adapted to all of this quicker than you did.” I shook my head at her, showing my disbelief in her statement. “Remember, you were the one to come to me to fight Deucalion and the alpha pack for Scott.”  
“I still cry at everything,” I scoffed at myself.  
“That’s okay,” she shook her head. “You just have to learn how to approach these things unemotionally - keep your eye on the objective and get it done - it’s how you stay strong in times like this.”  
I smiled up at her. “Thank you for always giving me the courage to do these things.”  
“You already have that courage yourself,” she commented before turning to me. “I believe in you, Giselle. If there’s anyone who can do this, it’s you,” she smiled at me.  
I returned her smile before pulling her into a tight hug. “You don’t know how much that means to me.”  
When we got to Oak Creek, we met up with Kira, Isaac, Scott, and Stiles who looked worse since I last saw him. While Scott and Stiles separated to go find Lydia, Allison, Isaac, Kira, and I entered the camp. We found Kira’s mother with the oni standing behind her. She was going to try and kill Stiles using the oni, and we had to make sure that didn’t happen.  
Side by side, Allison raised her bow and arrow as I raised my gun to point it at her. “Call them off,” Allison demanded.  
“You think you can take him alive? You think you could save him?” Mrs. Yukimura questioned us.  
“What if we can?” her daughter suggested.  
“I tried something like that 70 years ago. Your friend is gone,” she looked to me. “Your brother is gone.”  
“Are you sure?” Kira stepped forward. “If we can save Stiles so he doesn’t have to die, maybe that means that Rhys didn’t have to die.” Rhys was the original body the nogitsune first went into, a man that Mrs. Yukimura fell in love with at the internment camp.  
“I see I’m no longer the fox now, Kira.” In unison, the oni swung their swords around before taking a protective stance. “But the nogitsune is still my demon to bury.” And with that the oni vanished into thin air. Suddenly, Mrs. Yukimura’s demeanour changed. She looked down to her closed fist and when she opened it the bright light of a firefly died out.  
“What does that mean?” I demanded.  
“That means there’s been a change in ownership, little sis,” I heard Stiles’s voice behind me. We all turned to see the nogitsune. “And now they belong to me.”  
Before we knew it, it was an all out battle between us and the oni. It felt like we were fighting forever and when Isaac asked how to stop them, Mrs. Yukimura simply told us that we couldn’t. An explosion sounded from behind me as I was defending Isaac who had been almost cut into pieces by the oni’s swords. I turned around just in time to see an oni with an arrow in its chest disappear into thin air. Before we could celebrate the death of an oni, I saw one barreling straight towards Allison. As I aimed my gun at it, I called her name before I took two shots. One of the bullets flew into the eye socket of the mask and got lost in the darkness behind it while the other landed in its chest and it had exploded into a cloud of smoke, but not before driving his sword through Allison.  
“No!” I cried as I went to dive to catch her, but Scott was faster and he held her in his arms until her last breath. I found myself on the ground, unable to speak, stand, or do anything other than watch my friend die. Isaac was next to me and he held onto me to ensure that I didn’t fall to the ground completely. I watched as Allison’s now lifeless hand fell to the ground beside her and I dove to grab it in mine. I held it close to my face as I cried quietly, not wanting to let it go. Soon after, Argent and Derek showed up and they joined me by my side. I couldn’t fathom to look at Allison’s father, knowing he lost his wife, then sister, and now daughter. The blood that pooled in her mouth dribbled over her lips and the hand she was using to hold over her wound was covered in the same thing. I couldn’t bring myself to pull away from her.   
I was too late. And now she was dead because of it.  
Argent somehow kept his cool long enough to call the police. He devised the story that Scott, Allison, and Isaac were attacked by some guys and one of them killed Allison. He told Kira to get Stiles out of here and told me to leave, but I couldn’t find the strength to tear myself away from Allison.  
“Giselle, come on, you have to go,” Argent directed me.  
My eyes stayed locked on Allison’s frame in Scott’s arms. She went pale and cold quicker than I thought she would. “Giselle,” Derek reached over to my hand and pried it out of Allison’s.  
A wrack of sobs tore through me as I lost contact with her and realized that that was the last time I’d ever get to feel her next to me. Derek picked me up and into his arms and I took one last look at Allison, the last look I’ll ever get of her again, before Derek carried me away and I buried my face in his chest.

_“If we stay on the higher level, we should be okay,” Allison decided. I nodded silently as I tightened my grip on the gun once again. I saw her hand move over mine, bringing my attention to her.  
“Do you think Deucalion will figure out that we’re here? Here to protect Scott?” I worried.  
“I think he’ll be too preoccupied with the arrows and gunshots coming out of nowhere,” she chuckled, showing off her electric smile. “Remember who we’re fighting for,” she placed her hand on my arm. “Scott, Isaac, Boyd, Cora, Derek. These people give us the strength to fight, to not run away.”  
I inhaled deeply and let out a slow breath. I nodded to her, “Let’s do this.”_

Derek took me to the loft and I found the twins there. They looked roughed up, but they were healing.  
“What happened?” Ethan rushed over to us.  
I couldn’t pull my face away from his chest, but Derek didn’t respond, he just kept walking. I felt Derek sit me down on his bed and he crouched down in front of me. I kept my head low to hide my red, wet face. He used his hands to force my head up so I would look at him. I didn’t have anything to say and it didn’t seem like Derek did either, because all he did was dry my eyes with his thumbs.  
I could tell he wanted to say something, but he just didn’t know where to start and I didn’t blame him for that. He reached over and pulled the covers back on the bed before laying me down. My eyes stayed locked on him as I did and he pulled the covers over me. He crouched down to be at my eye level.  
“I almost saved her,” I whispered in a quivering voice. Derek moved my hair away from my face as I lay on my side, facing him. “It disappeared once I shot it. It disappeared before all the others did, but I was too slow,” I shook my head as I felt a fresh wave of tears flood over my eyes. “I think I killed it. But I was too late.” Derek shushed me softly as he continued to stroke my hair back. I could see the pain in his eyes at the state of me and he looked distraught because he didn’t know how to help me. My eyes soon became too heavy to keep open so I let them shut, to give my mind some rest from everything that happened tonight and my chest a break from the pain Allison’s death was causing me.

_I was in the woods wandering around. The cool air danced with my hair as I spun around, looking past the trees into the empty woods. It was just me and the trees. I sauntered through the forest, noticing that it was just the crack of dawn. I took in the smell of soil and the sound of leaves crunching beneath my feet. The cool breeze made me shiver and walk faster, to get out of the undesirable temperature.  
I stopped in my tracks when I found an arrow lodged into the trunk of a tree. I grabbed hold of it and tugged it out and looked to the arrow head. I found the fleur de lis engraved in it. The same design Allison had imprinted on her arrowheads. I found a hand slowly reaching out and taking it out of my hand. I found the hand belonged to Allison. She examined the arrow before turning to me with a breathtaking smile, “I was starting to think I lost this.”  
“Allison,” I exhaled as the pain in my chest returned and tears pooled up in my eyes.  
“Don’t do that,” she shook her head as she pushed some hair behind her ear gingerly.  
“I-I’m sorry,” I apologized deeply. “I almost-“  
“But you didn’t,” she spoke softly. “And that’s okay.”  
“No, it’s not,” I insisted.  
“It is,” she reassured me. “How do you handle a situation like this?” she tested.  
“Allison-” I began to protest, but she repeated her question. “Unemotionally,” I answered.  
“So stop crying,” she instructed softly. “You need to be brave for Stiles because he needs you right now. The nogitsune still needs to be stopped.” I swallowed the lump in my throat and dried my eyes. “Remember, you’re fighting for Stiles.”  
“And you,” I added.  
Allison took my head in her hands, “I believe in you, Giselle. If anyone can do this, it’s you.”_

That was the last thing I remember from the dream before waking up the next morning. My eyes focused on the loft ceiling that was far too high above me to make out the details of it. My eyes were still heavy from crying myself to sleep last night and I felt numb. No matter how much I wanted to stay in bed, I knew I had to get up. We still had to put a stop to the nogitsune and we couldn’t wait for another moment. I got out of the bed and headed to the bathroom to rinse my face and brush my teeth with a spare toothbrush Derek had in his bathroom. I let a few tears slip and blend in with the water dripping from my face but I forced myself to shut off my emotions for today. I couldn’t let them get in the way because if they did, they might cost us another life - my brother’s life.  
“Lydia’s still with Scott, we need to go,” I heard Aiden say to his brother and Derek.  
“You’re going to try and convince her to go with you?” Derek questioned.  
“I’m going to try and convince her to run away,” Aiden answered. “Like any sane person would.”  
“And Danny?”  
“Allison’s dead,” the other twin replied. “And Stiles is dying. What do you think?”  
“I think Danny won’t believe you and Lydia would never run and hide.”  
“Because of Stiles?” Aiden spat.  
“Because of Scott,” I corrected as I made my way out of the bathroom. I noticed the stares of all of them as they didn’t expect me to be put together as well as I was right now. “I know you guys want in on his pack so bad, but you’re doing it all wrong,” I folded my arms. “You want to fight for Scott, but you should be fighting for his cause.”  
“What cause?”  
“Scott’s always been about saving his friends,” Derek answered. “When there’s no chance of winning, he keeps trying, when gets beaten down, he gets back up. When all hope is lost, he finds another way.”  
“If you’re so desperate to be a part of his pack, then find another way because you’re wasting your time if you don’t.”  
Aiden and Ethan had nothing left to say to me so they turned and headed out of the loft. When the door slammed shut, Derek was by my side. “I’m okay,” I said before he could voice his concern. “The nogitsune and the oni are still out there and we need to stop them.” I paused to regain composure “If there’s anything…” I couldn’t bring myself to say her name. “…she taught me, it’s to be strong.”  
When Derek didn’t say anything else, I grabbed my bag off of the ground and headed for the door. “Where are you going?” he called to me.  
“To find Scott,” I replied over my shoulder. I paused for him to catch up, but when he didn’t, I pulled the door open. “Are you coming or should I shut the door behind me?”  
“Hold on,” he called to me. I turned to him to see him on his phone. After putting it in his pocket, he grabbed the triskele box that held his mother’s claws off of the table before following me out.  
“What are you taking that for?” I asked.  
“The box is made from the wood of the nemeton,” he began. “Scott said that when Kira’s mother buried the jar with the nogitsune fly in it, the tree was still whole.”  
“It’s only a stump now.”  
“Meaning it doesn’t have the power that it used to have to contain it.” He grabbed the box tighter, “If it can hold something as powerful as my mother’s claws, then I think the box is enough.”  
We were told by Scott to meet him and the others at the school and to bring Aiden and Ethan with us. When we got there, we found the nogitsune waiting for us with the oni behind him. Derek set the triskele box down, knowing that we were going to have to fight the oni before we got the box anywhere near Scott.

Aiden, Ethan, and Derek all fought the oni, setting them up in just the right position so I could shoot them with the silver bullets to kill them. Before I knew it, I was almost out of ammo and I was the subject of interest for two of the onis. Suddenly, an arrow whizzed by me and landed right in the chest of one of them. In a puff of smoke, it disappeared, leaving me to kill the one left standing in front of me. I found Argent standing on the bridge above us with a crossbow in his hands before Isaac jumped down and landed beside me. “What was that?” I called.  
“Silver,” Argent informed me.  
“Isaac! Giselle!” Derek called in the midst of the fighting. “Get the triskele box to Scott!”  
I glanced over my shoulder to Argent again and he nodded, telling me he could help Derek and the twins. Isaac picked up the box and grabbed my hand as we headed for the entrance of the school. Once we got there, I found the nogitsune cornering Lydia and Stiles.  
“We can change you!” the redhead said to the nogitsune as my brother held her close.  
“You can’t be a fox and a wolf,” Stiles said.  
Scott appeared behind the nogitsune and gave him the bite. He thrashed around and yelled out in pain before he dropped to his knees. His protests came to a halt and like marble, his face cracked before he fell to the ground and disappeared into a pile of dust. I found the fly buzzing around the hallway and Isaac captured it in the triskele box before sealing it shut.  
Suddenly, Stiles fell from Lydia’s grasp and he collapsed onto the floor.  
“Stiles!” I rushed over to him, putting my jacket under his head. I put my head to his chest and heard a faint heartbeat. “I think he just passed out.”  
After a few minutes, to our relief, Stiles woke up, but the celebration didn’t last long as we saw Lydia stand up and turn towards the doors of the school.  
“Derek, Argent, and the twins, they’re out there,” I said as Lydia headed for the door.  
I helped Stiles up as we followed her out, knowing that she was getting another supernatural feeling. I almost couldn’t bring myself to the door, not being able to handle another death.  
When we got outside, Lydia turned away from the scene that was a few feet away and hid her face in Stiles’s shoulder. Isaac and I rushed down the stairs to find Aiden had been stabbed by one of the oni’s swords. Ethan held onto his brother as Derek stood by my side. When Aiden let out his last breath, Ethan lowered Aiden to the ground as he sobbed and I felt Derek grab onto my hand as we silently mourned another loss.

The next month was spent trying to heal ourselves. Stiles had gotten back to normal and although he was scarred by what the nogitsune did as it possessed him, he was slowly getting better and understanding that it wasn't his fault. Scott had been the most quiet since Allison’s death. I wouldn’t push the boundaries, I would send him a small smile of reassurance when I saw him in the halls and would occasionally call him to let him know that I was there for him. Lydia was mourning Aiden’s death, dealing with having to see him die was the hardest part for her. Kira tried to help everyone as much as she could, but she still felt as though it wasn’t her place to say anything to us, but Lydia and I reassured her that even checking up on us was appreciated.

I still felt the pain Allison’s death left me with very deeply in my chest. I even dreamt of her sometimes. Scott and I would lean on each other for support, calling each other to talk about our feelings and even reminisce on memories we had of her. Derek was always checking up on me which made me feel better. He had apologized to me for not telling me about the nogitsune possessing Stiles and I decided that I could understand where he was coming from. I had been training more with Argent. On occasion he would tell me how I would remind him of her the way I was relentless to learn how to use the Chinese daggers. He had shut off his emotions when it came to talking to any of us about her, although I would still constantly reassure him that I was there to talk to him if he needed it. I had learned a lot from him which I was thankful for. I felt like I was honouring Allison by learning how to be a better fighter, so I could give her more to believe in as she watched over us.  
At school, Lydia, Kira, and I would usually group together to check on each other. “I think that looks perfect,” I smiled at the photograph of Lydia, Allison, and I that was now stuck to my locker door.  
“So do I,” Lydia smiled.  
Behind us, we heard coach trying to persuade someone to join the track team. When we turned, we saw Malia walking down the hallway as coach babbled about how she would be perfect for the team. Her brown eyes casted on us as she sent us a smile, telling us she was familiar with who we were. When she transferred to Beacon Hills High, Scott and Stiles had taken part in training her. She and Stiles even had a bit of a romance going on, picking up from where they left off in Eichen House. Although she was part of the group now, it didn’t mean that she was replacing Allison in any way. It was just another member of the pack.


	35. Chapter 35

“This isn’t exactly the dream vacation I thought I’d be having in Mexico,” I commented as myself, Scott, Stiles, Malia, and Kira were locked up in the back of a club.  
Derek had gone missing again and we thought the Calaveras might have something to do with his disappearance so we decided to head to Mexico. Our plan to get Derek back from these hunters didn’t go as smoothly as we had hoped. We decided to bribe her, but that didn’t work. We tried to use intimidation through attacking her men, but that didn’t work either. They had gotten Scott, Kira, Malia, and I in the hallway as Lydia and Stiles were negotiating and poisoned Malia and Scott with wolfsbane until they passed out and locked us in here. The Calaveras woman had Lydia as she left the rest of us locked up.  
The Calaveras men returned to the room and took Scott and I out of the room. An electrocution to Scott and a hit across the face to me made us easier to drag us out and leave the others behind. Scott was hosed down with water before we were both strapped down into chairs. When the Calaveras woman returned, she brought Lydia to stand in front of us next to a table full of wires and dials. I glanced to Scott who looked back at me. I could see the worry in Scott’s eyes, but I shook my head, telling him to not to do such a thing.  
The main Calaveras man - Savero - held tightly onto Lydia, making sure she didn’t run away. “So let me explain what’s about to happen,” he began in his thick Spanish accent. “The banshee’s hand is on the dial,” he said as he forced her hand there. “When necessary, she is going to turn the dial on the alpha. If she doesn’t I will turn the dial on the human.”  
“What is this? Is this a game to you?” Scott questioned the Calavera woman.  
“No lobito,” she cooed. “Think of it like a test. We’re going to ask some questions - if you answer, no one gets hurt. If you don’t, we turn on the dial.” She stopped sauntering once she got in front of Scott. “We don’t know where Derek is and we want to find him. You know where he is.”  
“What?” Scott was taken aback. “How would we know that?”  
The woman pursed her lips. “That doesn’t sound like much of an answer to me.” She looked over her shoulder to Savero and Lydia.  
“We don’t know,” I answered hastily before she could instruct them to shock Scott. “We came here looking for him because we thought he was here. Now that he’s not, we don’t know either.”  
“Lydia,” the woman called as her eyes stayed on mine. “Turn the dial.” When nothing happened to Scott, she glanced over her shoulder. “Should we turn the dial on Giselle instead!?”  
“No!” Scott protested. “Do it, Lydia. Do it. I can handle it.”  
“Let’s start at one.”  
As the currents passed through Scott’s body I watched his body tense up but I couldn’t look for long before the sight made me sick.  
“Who else would want Derek!?” the woman questioned. “Who else has a vendetta against the Hales!?”  
“I-I don’t know.”  
“Maybe turning the dial on Giselle will help you figure it out!”  
Despite Scott’s protests, the woman instructed Savero to turn my dial up to one and I felt my body go rigid as I felt the thudding of my heart against my ribcage.  
“Think!” the woman demanded of Scott. “Who has the power!?”  
“Stop! Just stop!” Scott pleaded as I felt my vision go hazy for a second.  
Surprisingly, she listened and I felt my body fall back against the chair as I panted heavily, feeling an ache all over.  
“Who has the power of a shapeshifter?” the woman continued firing questions but her eyes stayed on me. “Someone who could’ve turned without a bite!” she kept giving Scott hints as the currents now travelled through his body.  
“I don’t know!” Scott growled through gritted teeth.  
The woman pushed Lydia out of the way and sent the dial all the way up to the maximum. Scott shifted and cried out in pain as I tried to fight against my restraints to help somehow. Suddenly, Scott broke free and the woman put an end to the pain he was feeling.  
“Say the name, Scott,” she demanded.  
Scott looked up to her as he panted heavily. “Kate.”  
“Let them go,” the woman demanded of her men.  
The restraints were taken off of me and Scott as Lydia rushed over to me, apologizing profusely. “I’m okay,” I assured her. “Go to Scott, check on Scott.”  
She listened to me as she helped him off of his chair and I slowly got up from mine. Lydia and Scott were at the door as I was a few feet behind them. Before I could catch up, the woman grabbed onto my arm. “La voz,” she whispered before letting me go and watching me, waiting for me to leave.  
All of us got outside, waiting by Stiles’s jeep as the woman had some parting words for Scott. She agreed to help us find where Derek was, mainly because it would help them get closer to finding Kate. Once she let Scott go, I caught the longing look she gave me. I excused myself from everyone as I approached her. “The voice,” I translated. “That’s what you called me. Why?”  
“It is your power.”  
“My power?”   
“Scott was not the only supernatural creature that was tied up.”  
I stared at her in disbelief. “Am I a banshee?” I guessed, considering my voice was my power.  
“No,” she shook her head. “You are something far more lethal, mija.” That’s all she left me with before she went back into the building with her men.  
I reluctantly got back to everyone else as I heard Scott say the Calaveras were giving us a guide. In the nick of time, a motorcycle pulled up in front of us and when the driver removed their helmet, I saw Braeden, the girl who saved Isaac from the twins. She turned out to be a mercenary, someone who killed for money. She now had three scratches along her neck from when Deucalion and the rest of the alpha pack found her - when we thought they killed her. She was going to take us to the church where the Calaveras suggested Kate was keeping Derek. As we followed Braeden’s motorcycle in the jeep, Scott told us about how Peter had killed Kate when he was the alpha by ripping her throat out. There’s a myth that someone could be turned by an alpha’s claw marks if they went deep enough. When the Calaveras heard about this, they checked on Kate to see if she had been turned. When they found her healing, they took her to Mexico and demanded that she take her own life before turning as it was expected in the hunter’s code. However, instead of doing that, Kate had shifted and killed at least a dozen men to get out. Although we’re not sure if she turned into a werewolf considering the shape you take reflects who you are.  
Suddenly, the jeep hit something that almost sent us toppling over. We came to a stop to figure out what it was. Braeden had stopped as well to figure out what had happened.  
“I think we hit something!” Stiles called to her.  
I watched as Scott didn’t know what to do since we had to get to the church before sundown, but the jeep didn’t look like it was going to start back up any time soon. “Go,” I instructed. “Go with Braeden, we’ll catch up with you guys once the jeep is back up and running.”  
“Not without you,” Scott refused. He knew how worried I had been ever since Derek’s disappearance and I would love nothing more than to be there when we found him, but I knew it was either me or Scott who went with Braeden, and since Scott would have better luck finding him, I insisted that he went. I didn’t give him a chance to argue as I popped open the hood and took a look inside with Stiles.  
“Stiles,” Malia called and we turned to her. She was crouched down in front of the wheel as she tried to tug out something that got caught in it. “I don’t think we hit something,” she stood up, holding a bone.  
Night was falling quickly as I helped Stiles repair the jeep. “We’re not leaving the jeep,” Stiles and I told Lydia in unison when she suggested that we ditch it.  
“Work faster guys,” Malia instructed. I watched her look over the horizon before us. “There is something out here with us.”  
By the time night came around, I had given up helping Stiles with the jeep and I stayed by Malia and Kira’s side, looking out for whatever Malia thought was following us.  
“Anything?” Kira asked the werecoyote.  
“It’s too dark to see.”  
“Use your eyes,” I suggested.  
“It doesn’t help much,” Malia told me.  
I watched as Kira went over to the headlights of the jeep and used her sword to control the direction of the light. We almost missed the slight movement coming from behind the rocks in the distance. Once the creature made itself known, Malia had already shifted and began charging for it. Kira and I followed her, I pulled out my gun on the way over. We lost Malia in the midst of the shadows and the dark. She eventually found us, but she had been cut. When we heard the jeep roar to life, we raced back to it before whatever hurt Malia, hurt the rest of us too.  
We got to the church just in time to see Braeden and Scott exiting the abandoned church. They held Derek up as they helped him out of there. I launched myself out of the jeep and sprinted towards them but stopped short when I realized that Derek didn’t look like how I remembered him. He looked younger. A lot younger. Younger than us actually, he seemed to be about 15-16 years old by his lack of facial hair, muscular definition, and height. On the way to Deaton’s, Derek passed out from exhaustion. When Lydia, Scott, Stiles, and I got to the clinic, Deaton told us that Kate may have made him younger for her own personal gain.  
“What do we do until he wakes up?” Stiles asked as I glanced over Derek’s now boyish features. His skin had no trace of a beard, but his hair stayed the same as well as the permanent scowl etched onto his face.  
“We just have to wait,” Deaton suggested as I took Derek’s hand in mine. It was ice cold, so I checked his face and forehead before Deaton continued. “He should be okay. Everything looks normal.” the veterinarian looked up at us. “You four should get home and get some rest. It is a school night.”  
“Someone should stay here with you,” Scott said.  
“I’ll do it,” Lydia volunteered. “My grades are fine aside from missing a few classes.”  
While Stiles was reluctant to let Lydia stay here alone with Derek, Scott led him out of the animal clinic. “You too, Giselle,” Deaton said to me when I didn’t leave Derek’s side.  
I glanced between Deaton and Lydia before looking back to Derek. “Okay,” I sighed as I slowly released Derek’s hand.  
“I’ll call you if anything happens,” Lydia put a comforting hand on my back.

The next day, she did call. Derek had woken up and attacked Deaton before running from the animal clinic. He didn’t recognize Lydia or Deaton, so we concluded that he wasn’t only physically young, but he was mentally young.  
“Do you know where he went?” I asked the two of them interjecting in their conversation with Scott and Stiles.  
“Not a clue,” Lydia sighed.  
“A wolf would go back to its den, right?” Scott suggested. “So the loft.”  
“No, but he has the mind of his teenage self, remember?” Stiles shut the idea down.  
“Where would he go then?”  
“The Hale house,” I figured out. “But it’s been taken over by the county, when he gets there he’s going to find…nothing.”  
“So what are you guys going to tell him?” Lydia questioned. “That his whole family died?”  
“We have to tell him the truth,” Scott decided. “He can hear our heart beats rise when we lie.”  
“We should go to the station, if Derek left as long ago as you guys said, he might have already been taken off of the property,” Stiles suggested.

When we got to the station, we found my dad crouched down and looking at Derek quizzically, almost like he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Upon our arrival, my dad ushered the three of us into his office.  
“If you guys are time travelling now, then I’m out!” my dad threw his hands up in the air. “You two are going to be driving me to Eichen House,” he pointed to Stiles and I.  
“We’re not time travelling,” I assured him. “Derek got aged backwards.”  
“How?” he folded his arms.  
“In an aztec temple in Mexico, in a dungeon full of wolfsbane, in a city that was destroyed by an earthquake,” Stiles answered.  
“You guys told me you were going camping!”  
“We were.”  
“In Mexico,” I finished.  
“We just need to talk to him, get him to trust us so we can help him,” Scott got back to the point.  
My dad agreed and brought Derek into his office. The boys looked at me, waiting for me to talk to him. I crouched down before Derek as he looked at me, confused. “I know that this is all really confusing and it’s a lot happening all at once and-and that makes you scared, but you don’t have to be scared with us,” I promised.  
“Why not? I don’t know any of you.” I could make out the uncertainty in his eyes.  
“Because we’re trying to help you. You lost a lot of memory, but we’re going to help you get it back.”  
“Where’s my family then?”  
I glanced over my shoulder to the boys.  
“There was a fire,” Scott began and I saw the panic in Derek’s eyes.  
“But your family had to leave Beacon Hills. And when you get your memory back…you’ll be able to find them,” I bent the truth. His family did leave Beacon Hills but not in the way I insinuated it.  
“Fine, but that still doesn’t tell me why I should trust you guys,” Derek said to me.  
I felt Scott put his hand on my arm and I stood up beside him. I watched him glow his red eyes at Derek, letting him know he was one of them.  
“You’re an alpha,” Derek stared at Scott in awe as I took a seat on the desk next to Stiles on our father’s desk.  
In the midst of their conversation, Stiles nudged my shoulder and gestured down to the mail on the desk. One of them was from Eichen House stamped SECOND NOTICE. I sent Stiles a questioning look. “Second notice for what?” I whispered.  
“Payment,” Stiles sighed ominously.

It didn’t take long for Scott to convince Derek to trust us and when we got out of the office, Derek had to sign a few forms as Scott, Stiles, and I waited for him at the front desk. I felt a bit uneasy, knowing that I lied to Derek, but what else was I supposed to do? He had to trust us so we could keep a close eye on him before he got himself into any trouble.  
“Why didn’t you tell him the truth?” Scott asked me lowly.  
“I…” I sighed. “I couldn’t let him go through that again - you saw the look he gave! What was I supposed to say?”  
“It’s okay,” Stiles butt in. “He believed Giselle and he trusts us. He’ll be back to normal in no time and it won’t matter.”  
Scott decided he was going to go to Peter while Stiles and I watched over Derek at Scott’s house. Stiles and I watched as Derek walked toward us.  
“Where’s Scott?” Derek asked me.  
“He had to go do some alpha things, but he’ll be back soon.”  
“In the mean time, we’ll be looking after you,” Stiles smiled, giving him a light punch on the shoulder which earned him a glare from Derek.  
“Both of you?” the werewolf looked back to me and I nodded. “Does he have to come along?” he asked me in a low voice.  
“Unfortunately yeah,” I chuckled before we headed over to the jeep.  
“I’m still here, you know!” Stiles called after us. “May not have the super hearing but I have pretty good hearing!”

When we got to Scott’s house, Derek and Stiles had gotten into a fight on the way as Stiles laid out very strict rules for him that he didn’t seem to like nor agree with and he had no trouble outlining his distaste.  
“And you’re not going to talk to anyone,” Stiles finished once we were in the house.  
“Can I talk to you?” Derek replied.  
“No.”  
“Can I talk to her?” he glanced to me.  
“Absolutely not.”  
I glared at Stiles. “Of course you can,” I reassured Derek.  
“Who’s going to talk to him then?” he pointed before us. Agent McCall stood between the three of us holding a big brown bag of take out food. The sight of him scared Stiles half to death before he asked us what we were doing here. “Waiting for Scott,” Derek answered.  
“So am I, we were supposed to have dinner,” Scott’s dad gestured to the bag of food. “I brought extra, are you guys hungry?”  
“No,” Stiles replied as Derek said the opposite. “We’re not hungry,” Stiles finished.  
“But I’m starving,” Derek argued.  
“Neither of us are hungry. Thank you though.”  
“Okay,” Agent McCall set the bag down on the table. “If you’re not hungry Stiles, your friend and sister are still allowed to eat,” he looked to Derek. “What’s your name?”  
“Miguel,” Stiles answered before Derek could. “He’s our cousin Miguel. From Mexico.”  
“Oh Mexico,” Agent McCall mused before asking him if he spoke Spanish, in Spanish.  
Stiles and I waited with bated breath for Derek’s response, but I was surprised when he responded in fluent Spanish. It was almost kind of hot - it would’ve been all the way hot if he spoke in Spanish while he was his age.  
“Fantastic,” Scott’s dad smiled. “Egg roll?” he offered.  
“Hell yeah,” Derek grinned before heading over to the table. Stiles and I glanced to each other before reluctantly joining the two of them at the table. The conversation started off casual but it was headed down a dark path when Derek saw Agent McCall’s badge and began asking about the Hale fire. Stiles and I tried to steer the conversation away from that topic but inevitably, Derek found out the truth.  
When dinner was finished, the three of us headed up to Scott’s room where I was under Derek’s scrutiny. His intimidation and overall sour mood hadn’t seemed to falter throughout the years, but he was more susceptible to showing his vulnerability in times of weakness, whether he knew it or not. “You lied to me,” he said, his vulnerability poking through his obvious anger.  
“I-I’m sorry,” I apologized. “I couldn’t let you know what had happened because I knew that it would hurt you and I-I couldn’t hurt you like that,” I winced, realizing where I’ve heard that before.  
“I thought I could trust you!”  
“You still can trust us,” Stiles told him. “Trust her,” he corrected himself under Derek’s gaze.  
“I want to talk to the alpha.”  
“Okay, yes, we’ll get him on the phone right now,” I promised before grabbing Stiles’s hand and leading him out of the room as he dialled Scott’s number. When we got him on the phone, Scott told us that Peter suggested Kate might have turned Derek back to his teenage self so they would go back to a time where he still trusted her.  
“Scott,” Stiles began as we headed back to the room. “If you really think that Kate is coming for Derek-” the both of us stopped short in the doorway as we found the room empty with Kate escaping through the window. “Then you’re right,” Stiles finished.  
Stiles and I called Lydia to tell her and Kira to meet us at the school. She told us that she found a dead body - an almost completely mutilated body - in the bathroom of a gas station. “It had to have been Kate,” Lydia said over the phone as Stiles and I approached the school in the jeep.  
“That’s why she aged him back,” Stiles said as we got out of the jeep and got to Lydia and Kira. “She needs to learn how to control the shift.”  
Kira wielded her katana as I got my gun in my hand and taser in my holster. We heard Scott roar out in pain so we followed the noise to go help him. When we got to the top deck of the school, we found two very large men wearing the bones and skin of bears. “Berserkers,” I named them. Argent had told me a little bit about them - the bear skin and bones helped them feel like they were an actual bear, giving them the power to be so malicious and violent.  
Kira and I charged at the two. I shot at them as Kira used their swords to move them away from Scott and Malia who the berserkers had cornered. My bullets were ricocheting off of the bones and did no good. One of the berserkers used its hand to hit Kira across the face, sending her flying to the ground next to my friends. I pulled out my taser as they turned to me. I electrocuted one of them on their bodies where their bones did nothing to help them as I was left to stand off against the other one. I held it off, but only for a moment. I was sent toppling to the floor on the other side of my friends as both of them got up and began to approach me in my vulnerable state.  
Before they could get to me, Derek appeared between us and he began to fight them off and away from me. “Derek!” I protested, knowing that if the four of us couldn’t handle the berserkers, there was no way one teenager could. But he proved me wrong. Through a series of kicks and flips and swipes of his claws, Derek held them off before a roar that resembled a werewolf’s sent the berserkers running in the other direction and all that was left before us was the silhouette of Derek. But he looked bigger, buffer, and taller.  
“Derek?” Scott called cautiously. When he turned to us, we thought he was back to normal before his eyes flashed an amber instead of an icy blue.


	36. Chapter 36

That night at the hospital, a boy had come in all bloody and he collapsed right onto the floor. His name was Sean and his story was that his family had been murdered caused us to call the cops who soon turned up to the hospital with the bodies of his parents and older brother in body bags in ambulances behind them. Melissa, my father, and I all went to the back to investigate if this was a supernatural murder. We found several deep wounds throughout the bodies of each of Sean’s family members.  
“They’re completely torn apart,” I commented.  
“And Sean was the only one who got away,” my dad said. “From what?”  
Melissa and I turned to him. “From _who_ ,” she corrected. “These aren’t claw marks, these are deep wounds.”  
“Combination of sharp and blunt force trauma,” I added.  
“The EMTs said it was some kind of axe,” dad said.  
“So I guess this isn’t a product of the supernatural for once.”  
“Which means you three don’t have to get involved,” he referenced me, my brother, and Scott.  
Stiles brought it up at school the next day and although I tried to reassure him that it wasn’t a supernatural case, he was persistent on looking further into the triple homicide case.  
After school, I was at the front desk of the hospital when Scott and Stiles came through the front doors with one of the freshmen from school who was limping.  
“What happened?” I asked once I got to them.  
“We were at the tryouts, he landed on his ankle wrong,” Scott told me.  
I crouched down to inspect the ankle without touching it too much. “What’s your name?” I asked the boy.  
“Liam,” he answered.  
“Okay,” I stood up again. “We’ll take good care of you.”  
When I turned to find a nurse to help, Melissa showed up just in time. We got him into a wheelchair and Melissa wheeled him off. I noticed the remorse on Scott’s face which caused me to shoot a look at Stiles, silently asking him what happened.  
“I used some of my powers on the field,” Scott told me. “I got worried that he was going to take my position as captain on the lacrosse team and he got hurt.”  
“He’s going to be okay,” I put a hand on his shoulder. “It’s most likely just a sprained ankle at the most.”  
Scott nodded before Stiles told us he had to go help Malia study for math, but he stopped short to turn around and reassure Scott that Liam’s injury wasn’t his fault. “I don’t know…” he doubted the idea.  
“Scott, if you used even have of your wolf powers, he wouldn’t be limping, he’d be crawling - back to the other half of his body,” Stiles reminded him.  
“If I hadn’t used any at all, he wouldn’t be hurt either.”  
“You’re allowed to want something for yourself, you know?” I said. “Even if part of being an alpha is putting your pack first, you’re still human.”  
“He’s going to get better and you deserve to be team captain,” Stiles added. “You worked your ass off to get to that spot so it’s normal if you want to keep it.” After some parting words, Stiles headed for the exit of the hospital.  
“Giselle! Giselle!” I heard Scott calling my name as he barrelled through the hospital hallways about 15 minutes later.  
“I’m here!” I called back as I ran over to him at the end of the hall. “What’s wrong?”  
“Sean Walcott, where is he?” he asked me.  
“He’s one floor up, what happened?”  
“Lydia told me we have to find him - I don’t know why but it didn’t sound good.”  
“Come on,” I grabbed his hand as we headed towards the elevator.  
Despite asking for the people in the elevator to hold it, the doors shut in our faces. Suddenly, Scott’s head snapped up to look at the ceiling. “It’s my mom,” he told me.  
I led him over to the stairwell as we practically leapt up them. As we got closer I heard Melissa’s cries and when we got out to the third floor, I found Melissa on the floor, covered in blood, and being dragged back into Sean’s room by Sean.  
Scott’s roar sent Sean looking straight at us with almost all of his eyeballs covered by a pale blue colour. He screeched at the sight of Scott, revealing multiple sharp rows of teeth before the two charged at each other. When Scott tackled Sean to the ground, I grabbed onto Melissa to pull her away from the fighting. “Are you hurt?” I asked her, examining her body.  
“I’m okay!” she said.  
Scott’s body was sent flying into the wall of the hospital before Sean took off. Once he checked on his mother, he took off in Sean’s direction to stop him. “What happened?” I asked Melissa.  
“W-well, I went in to tell him that the police were here - to get a statement about the murders,” she began as we headed over to the room. “But when we got here, I found him eating.”  
“Eating what?” my brows pulled together in confusion.  
“That,” she pointed before us to a deputy’s body that had the stomach torn open and the intestines hanging out of it.

At the end of my shift, I asked Derek to take me home so I could tell him what happened at the hospital. He was already at the hospital because my dad asked me to call him in for help on what really happened on the roof. Once he turned back to his present self, all of his memories came back and he even remembered what had happened when he was aged back.  
“Scott said he was a wendigo,” I told him. “A cannibalistic shapeshifter, he was murdered, just like the rest of his family on the rooftop.”  
“Scott said it was an axe murderer, with no mouth.”  
“He didn’t tell me that,” my brows pulled together. “I guess he was kind of in shock.”  
“Because of what?”  
“He may have found a new member to his pack.”  
Derek’s head whipped to me. “He bit someone?”  
“The freshman he hurt - Liam. Scott said he was falling off of the edge of the hospital and Sean had a grip on his hands, so he used his teeth to keep him from falling.”  
“Did it turn him?”  
“Scott said it wasn’t killing him, so he might turn.” Derek nodded in response. “Have you found anything on Kate yet?”  
“Nothing, Peter, Braeden, and I spent all week searching for her and we came up with nothing,” he let out an aggravated sigh. “I gave Braeden another week to find something.”  
“She’ll find something,” I reassured him, but he simply stayed silent so I decided to change the topic of conversation to something a bit lighter. “Your teenage self is pretty charming,” I smirked.  
“You think so?” he smirked to me.  
“Oh yeah, I think I like him a bit better,” I laughed when I saw the expression on Derek’s face when I said that. His smirk had faltered as he sent a playful glare my way, but a smile eventually revealed itself to me. “I didn’t know you were fluent in Spanish.”  
Derek shrugged, “I got bored with French, so I picked up Spanish.”  
“You _picked up_ a whole language?” I breathed a laugh.  
Derek hummed a yes as he smirked. “Do you know any words?”  
“In French or Spanish?”  
“Both.”  
It didn’t take long for my brain to remember a specific Spanish word that came up while we were in Mexico. “La voz,” I said it out loud.  
“Do you know what it means?”  
“The voice.”  
“That’s right,” he looked over at me. “What is it?” he noticed my expression as I got lost in thought.  
“No, nothing,” I shook my head but he gave me a look of uncertainty. “Seriously, nothing.”  
“Here we are,” he pulled up into my driveway.  
“Thank you,” I smiled at him as I began to leave the car. Once I was out, I looked in through the passenger window after I shut the door. “Don’t worry too much about this Kate thing. We’ll figure it out. We always do.”

The next day, we all had a plan to help Liam during the full moon tonight. Liam hadn’t taken kindly to what had happened to him, he tried to avoid Scott and Stiles all day which made us worry for what was going to happen to him tonight. Lydia offered to keep him and Malia locked up in her lake house tonight. Kira had convinced Liam that there was a party tonight and she got him under the impression that he was going to be her date to it.  
As Stiles, Malia, and I set out to get to the lake house, I found Derek waiting for me in my driveway. “Hey,” I approached him as Stiles and Malia got into the jeep.  
“I was wondering if your dad was home.”  
I quirked my brow. “That’s a question I didn’t expect,” I chuckled. “He’s still at the station, why?”  
“We need to go see him.”  
“What happened, are you okay?”  
“The murderer - the one who killed Sean - he attacked Peter in the loft today,” Derek paused. “He told Peter that I was next.”  
“I thought he didn’t have a mouth?”  
“He doesn’t, but he has this,” he held up a glove with a small keyboard attached to it.  
“Um,” I glanced over my shoulder to Stiles and Malia who were watching us. I headed over to him and just as I was about to explain the situation, Stiles cut me off.  
“She heard everything. We can handle it there tonight, you go with Derek,” he told me.  
“If anything happens, you call me okay?” I said before he nodded. I began to walk away, but I stopped to turn back to them. “And stop eavesdropping on my conversations.”  
“Dad,” I knocked on the door of his office.  
“Hi sweetheart,” he smiled to me as Derek and I entered.  
“We might have some information on the axe murderer.” Derek explained what happened to Peter in the loft and showed the glove to my dad. “It’s what he uses to communicate,” Derek finished, placing the glove on my father’s desk.  
My dad shook his head, distraught by the idea of an axe murderer in Beacon Hills. “Who the hell goes around with a tomahawk?” he questioned.  
“I carried one for IED removal when I was in Afghanistan,” Parrish said once he walked in on our conversation. “It’s military practice. So is that,” he pointed to the glove.  
“Do you know what it’s used for?” I asked.  
“Well, this one looks like it’s been modified,” Parrish inspected it. I glanced to my father then to Derek, who nodded to my father. He went to shut the door which caught Parrish’s attention.  
“Tell us everything you know about that,” I said to the deputy.  
“Well, I can track the IP address to see if we can track this guy down.” My dad gestured to his computer, silently telling Parrish to figure it out. After a few minutes, he was successful. “We can definitely track this guy,” Parrish said. “Especially if-“ he was cut off by the glove moving on its own.  
“What the hell was that?” I questioned.  
“I think I found a message,” Parrish looked to the computer screen. I looked over his left shoulder as Derek looked over mine. “Does anyone recognize the handle _Benefactor_?” he asked before _money transferred_ appeared beside the name. It looked like a chatroom conversation.  
“What does that mean?” Derek wondered after reading the sentence out loud.  
“It means this guy’s not just a killer, he’s an assassin,” my dad sighed.  
“Sheriff,” Parrish got our attention. “I think I know where to find him.”  
Parrish had told us that the IP address led us to the school’s Wi-Fi. That was our only lead which sent us to the school. Dad had his flashlight and gun out as Derek and I followed him in.  
“Just because this guy connected to the school’s Wi-Fi doesn’t mean he’s still here,” Derek pointed out as we proceeded down the empty hallway with caution.  
“I’ve seen enough in this school to keep my gun in my hand after dark,” my dad replied.  
I looked around the hallway that wasn’t illuminated by my father’s flashlight to make sure we weren’t missing anything. As we approached one of the closed classroom doors, I saw a puddle of liquid spilling out from underneath it. I reached over to my father’s hand and tugged his arm to shine the flashlight on the liquid which was blood. Then I looked over to Derek. “You didn’t catch the smell of it?”  
“I should’ve caught it before we even walked in,” he replied as we glanced up and down the hallway.  
I walked over to the door and let my fingers wrap around the handle. When dad placed his hand over mine to stop me, I jumped.  
“You nervous, makes me nervous,” he told me as I took my hand off of the door handle.  
My dad stepped in front of Derek and I as he shone his light through the window of the classroom to see what had caused the blood to spill out. My dad slowly rotated the door handle and opened it with the same speed. He hissed as he froze in his spot. I bent down to look through the opening of the door as Derek did the same thing behind me.  
“It’s a claymore,” I said as I looked at the rope tied to the pull pin of the explosive that was connected to the door handle on the other side.  
I felt Derek wrap his arm around my waist and pull me to his body before he pushed my father away from the door and in the opposite direction. As Derek’s body collided with the lockers and my body collided with his, I noticed a tomahawk had been launched into the wall.  
I looked ahead to see the hairless, mouthless man jump down from the top of the stairs before us. He had a tomahawk in hand that he used to swing around at Derek as the two of them fought. Eventually Derek got the upper hand, as he had the man’s arms pulled back behind him. My father got to his feet, holding out his gun in front of him as he began to recite the man’s Miranda rights to him. I stood in front of him as my dad handcuffed him from behind, but that was my mistake.  
“Peter, no!” Derek called as he threw a panicked look behind me.  
I looked over my shoulder to see Derek’s uncle barrelling down the hall towards me before I was flung into the wall of lockers. I held back a groan as my body hit the floor and I watched Peter kill the man that had tried to kill him and Derek. I glanced over to Derek and my father who were both on the ground, witnessing the same thing I was.  
When Peter had finished killing the man, his face shifted back but the blood of his victim remained splattered all over his face. My dad rushed over to me, making sure I was okay and helping me up from the ground.  
“We’ve learned a better way!” Derek called to Peter who was walking out of the school.  
“I’m a creature of habit,” Peter replied to his nephew absentmindedly.  
Once he was out of sight, Derek rushed over to me. “Are you okay? Did he hurt you?”  
“I’m fine,” I said. “Just a bit of an ache, but it’s okay.”  
Derek took hold of my hand and began to take away my pain even though I tried to wriggle my hand out of his grasp. Although I was thankful, I gave him a disapproving look. “You didn’t have to do that,” I reminded him, but he waved it off.  
“You two get out of here,” my dad told us. “I’ll get the paramedics to come get the body.”  
“You shouldn’t do that,” I told Derek on the ride home.  
“You’ve never complained when I’ve taken your pain before.”  
“Because you didn’t do it in front of my dad all the other times.”  
“What does he have to do with it?”  
“I just don’t want him getting the wrong impression about us like he did before. I’d really like to not have to relive that conversation,” I breathed a laugh, remembering the conversation I had with my dad when Derek drove me to the station that one morning.  
“No problem,” Derek nodded. “I won’t do it again,” he smirked over at me.  
Once I wished him goodnight, I got up to my room to try and get some sleep. I haven’t been sleeping well since the night in Mexico. At night, I would just lay awake in my bed as I wondered what the Calavera woman meant when she called me “la voz” and what led her to call me that. After endless nights of going over the possible ways she could’ve figured it out - ruling out intuition and a lucky guess - I was keen on the idea that she probably saw something when she shocked me. I know that werewolves shift when they get shocked enough - it happened to Scott right next to me - so what if something happened to me?

The next day after school, I decided to go to the animal clinic to talk to Deaton. I knew I had to figure out what the Spanish huntress had been hinting at. If I wasn’t a banshee, I don’t know what else I would be. The bell above the door sounded as I opened and shut the front door. Out he emerged in his white coat. “Giselle,” he smiled to me. “I’m sorry, but Scott isn’t here,” he put his hands in his pocket.  
“I’m actually here to see you,” I replied.  
“Please,” he opened the gate that led to the surgical room. “Come in.”  
I walked in and when we got to the back, I explained everything that had happened. “She must have seen something when I got electrocuted,” I suggested. “I know that werewolves can shift with enough volts running through their systems at a time, so maybe that’s what happened to me.”  
“Did anyone else see anything? Lydia? or Scott?”  
“If they did, they haven’t said anything.”  
“It may have been the colour of your eyes,” Deaton suggested. “Those are usually the first things to change when you start to transform.”  
“I was thinking of trying something,” I began hesitantly. “To see if I start to transform again.”  
“What is it?”  
“Well, they saw what they did through electrocuting me, so…” I trailed off, looking at the veterinarian cautiously. Deaton inhaled deeply, his eyes falling to the metal table. “I know that it’s a lot to ask, but I wouldn’t be asking you if I had someone else to go to with this. But I’ve been losing sleep over this and I don’t think I can handle not knowing what I am anymore.”  
With an ominous sigh, Deaton agreed. The only thing he had was a pair of defibrillators, but he was adamant about only using them on my shoulders instead of directly on my chest. “Okay, I’m going to start off on the lowest setting,” he sighed.  
“I really appreciate this,” I reminded him, knowing he was reluctant to go through with this.  
Deaton sent me an uncertain smile, “here we go,” he announced.  
We only went through with about four shocks before moving up to a higher level. We continued on like this for about 10 minutes before Deaton decided to stop. “No, keep going,” I panted. “I can feel something happening.”  
“Yes, it’s the irregular beating of your heart,” Deaton shut the machine off.  
“Did you see anything?”  
“I’m afraid not.” I groaned and ran my hands through my hair in frustration. “I know it’s frustrating but if you really are something, it will show itself soon.”  
After advising me to get some rest when I got home, I left the clinic feeling utterly defeated. Maybe it would take more time to figure out what I was. I knew going back to Mexico and asking the huntress what she saw was going to get me nowhere, because she didn’t seem like the kind of woman who gave up information easily.  
 _Hopefully time is on my side._


	37. Chapter 37

“It’s a deadpool,” Stiles said as we sat in his room, looking at the web he had created to help explain the situation to me. “It’s a list of names of all the supernatural creatures in Beacon Hills.”   
I looked at the list, trying to ignore the panicked skip of my heart at the information. I found all of my friends’s names on it and other people who I’ve never heard of. “What are the numbers next to the names?”  
“Money,” my brother replied.   
“Someone’s killing only to get 250 bucks?”  
“250 000,” he corrected. My eyes widened at the list. “The guy who killed Sean’s family, he’s called the mute, but you already know Peter killed him.” I found Sean and the rest of his family’s names on the list. “Carrie Hudson was killed last night, and Demarco Montana was decapitated at the party.”  
“Not by the mute since he’s dead. So people with this list are just going around killing people?”  
“And they get the money after they send photographic evidence to the guy who calls himself The Benefactor,” he looked at me, “It was broken with a cypher key - a key word. We think there’s two other lists.”  
“What was the word?”  
Stiles was silent for a moment. “Allison.”  
My heart clenched at her name, but I didn’t let him see it. “And the other key words?”  
“Lydia’s been at the lake house all weekend trying to figure it out.”  
“Deaton said your sacrifices would give power to the nemeton.”  
“There’s a limit to the amount of names that can be on the list. When you guys were fighting the berserkers at the school, someone stole the bonds that Derek and Peter were keeping in the vault.”  
“That’s how they’re paying for the murders,” I pieced together.  
“Exactly and the person who killed Demarco had to have been someone at the school.”  
“Why’s that?”  
“He delivered a keg to the party, so whoever ordered it had to be the one to kill him, to get him in the right place for the kill. And the person who killed Carrie - the one who stabbed her - the wounds were surrounded by octagon imprint, one similar to the end of a lacrosse stick.”  
“There’s a game tonight, Stiles.”  
“We looked through all the sticks in the locker room and we didn't find anything.”  
“We need everyone there.”  
“I already told dad and he told me he was coming tonight.”  
“I’ll be there too,” I promised.  
And I was, but my father wasn’t. I sat on the bleachers as the two teams began to warm up. Scott told me that they had a suspicion that the person who killed Carrie and Demarco was Garrett. Liam told him that Garrett was the one who paid for the keg and despite the fact that he didn’t order it, him paying for it still said something, plus he was on the lacrosse team and used his own lacrosse stick instead of the school’s equipment.  
“Dad, you have to get here soon, the game’s about to start,” I told my father over the phone.  
“I know honey, but this phone call isn’t going to get me there any sooner. I’m putting on my coat now, I’ll give you a call once I get there.”  
When we hung up, I glanced over to Stiles who was sitting on the bleachers with the rest of the team, he gave me a questioning look and when I shook my head, telling him dad wasn’t near yet, he had a hard time keeping his flailing under control. A few minutes later dad called me back to tell me that Meredith had shown up at the station to talk to Lydia, so he told me to call her and tell her to get down to the station.  
I watched the game almost at the edge of my seat. Although it wasn’t confirmed it was him, I kept a close eye on Garrett. In the middle of the game, Liam ended up colliding with one of the players from the other team - his old school’s team. I think the other guy’s name was Brett. After Brett was taken off of the field due to injury, Lydia called me back.  
“We broke the second list,” she told me.  
“Who’s on it?”  
“I can send you a photo, but I think there’s something you need to know.”  
My heart dropped to my stomach. “W-what is it?” _Had my name appeared on this list?_  
“There’s a name on this list and I don’t know if you know it or not.”  
“Who’s n-name is it?” I winced, angry at myself for showing my nervousness.  
“Parrish,” she answered. The thudding in my ears came to a halt as I repeated the name in disbelief. “I don’t know what he is and I don’t know if he knows either.”  
“Lydia, send me a picture of the list.” When she sent it, I found Kira’s mom’s name and another name of interest. I rushed down the bleacher to Kira and the boys. “Lydia broke the code on the third list and I don’t think Brett’s injured from the collision with Liam.”  
“Who’s name broke it?” Stiles asked me.  
“Aiden’s,” I answered sombrely.  
“So the cypher keys are the people who died?”  
“I think so.”  
“I have to go find Brett,” Scott panicked. “Garrett got him, he went after Brett instead of Liam.” He raced off before anyone of us could stop him, but Stiles and I followed him soon after.  
We got to the locker room to find Brett on the ground along with Garrett’s passed out girlfriend, Violet. He took off the necklace I had seen on her through the halls. “That’s the thermal wire,” I figured out. “The one she used to decapitate Demarco.”  
“And the one she tried to use to decapitate Scott,” Stiles panted.  
“You should call your dad,” Scott advised Stiles before turning to me. “Call Derek, and get Brett to Deaton’s.”  
When I did as I was told, I found at Derek was already at the school, in his family vault. We lay him down in the backseat as he lay passed out. “You didn’t tell me you were at the school,” I said to him.  
“I knew your dad was coming, so I didn’t want to give him any reason to be under the impression that we’re…” Derek trailed off.  
“Dating?” I completed the sentence and he nodded. “We can still be around each other,” I breathed a laugh. “He knows we’re friends.”  
“Wouldn’t want him to think more though, right?” I could hear the bitter undertone to his words. It wasn’t an overwhelming amount, but enough to let me know that something was off.  
“I guess not.” I replied uneasily.  
“I was there with Argent anyways. When Kate aged me back, she wanted to get access to the triskelion,” he informed me. “She’s not human anymore. When Peter killed her, the claws went deep enough and she changed.”  
“To a werewolf?”  
“Werejaguar.”   
“That’s a thing?”   
Derek hummed a yes in response. “They have a special bond with berserkers, that’s how she could call them off and get them to attack.”  
“Why did she want the triskelion?”  
“It’s what we use to teach betas how to control their shift,” Derek answered as he turned into the parking lot of the animal clinic.  
“She’s not able to control the shift. She completely tore apart the gas station attendant - the one Lydia found,” I said once we exited the car.  
“Exactly,” he nodded as we both got Brett out of the car.  
When we got into the clinic, Brett began to convulse in our arms and he was foaming at the mouth with a yellow substance. “Deaton!” I called and he appeared, opening the gate to let us through.  
We lay him down on the metal table and held him down, as he continued to convulse. “You two need to hold him down so I can make the incision to get the wolfsbane out of his system,” Deaton instructed.  
I used all my might but Brett was still moving too erratically. “Derek, how about some werewolf strength?”  
“I’m not the only one in the room with werewolf strength,” Derek spat back as he glanced to Brett.   
Suddenly, Brett used his arms and legs to push us all away from him. I flew back into the cupboards, my face hitting one of them. I held my face as I fell to the ground. Just as Brett was about to make a break for it, Peter stood in the doorway, knocking him out and rendering him unconscious. “I guess I still have some werewolf strength,” he looked over to Derek.  
I followed his gaze and found Derek looking at the claw marks on his forearm that weren’t healing as quickly as they should. I looked over to Brett who lay on the floor.  
“I don’t think he’s breathing,” I bent down next to Brett as Deaton did the same next to me. With the scalpel, he made an incision in the middle of Brett’s chest, expelling the poison from his body which made him gasp for breath. I watched as the wolfsbane rose from his chest as a puff of smoke before dispersing in the air. “Is he going to be okay?” I asked as I used a wet cloth to clean up the wolfsbane that had foamed out of his mouth and now sat on his cheeks and lips.  
“He’s going to be out for a while, but he should be okay with some rest.”  
I watched his lips move as I heard the faintest whisper. “What’s he saying?”  
Deaton leaned down and after a few minutes, he provided us with a Buddhist proverb, “What three things cannot long be hidden? The sun, the moon, the truth.”  
“Sitomi,” Peter said.  
“Who’s that?” I looked between everyone.  
“An alpha,” Deaton answered. “She keeps her pack secluded and trains them using Buddhist means.”  
“So he’s part of her pack?”  
“It looks like it and if the deadpool is targeting every supernatural in Beacon Hills, they’ll be the last to know about it.”  
When Derek, Peter, and I were leaving, I grabbed Derek’s arm and pulled him aside. “What’s going on with you?” I asked quietly.  
“What?” his brows pulled together in confusion.  
“I saw you weren’t healing as fast as you normally do,” I confessed. “And you didn’t smell the blood at the school and the colour of your eyes are different. So what’s going on?”  
Derek looked to the ground, almost ashamed. “I don’t know what happened,” he shook his head, clearly frustrated. “Giselle,” he looked at me. “I’m losing my powers.” I was in utter disbelief. “Whatever Kate did when she aged me backwards, it’s slowly making me lose all my powers.”  
“Does Argent know anything about it?”  
Derek shook his head. “I don’t think anyone does.”  
“There has to be some way to reverse it, right? Anything you do there’s almost always a way to reverse it.”  
“Almost.” That was the last thing Derek said to me, before he got in the car and I followed silently.

For the next few days after that, Derek and I hadn’t spoken. The last thing I heard about him was Malia telling me that she and Derek found Sitomi’s pack but a lot of them were poisoned. Melissa told me that Derek had brought Braeden to the hospital. She was with the rest of the pack and was hurt as well. He had been staying with her all night. If I said that that didn’t bother me, you wouldn’t have to be a werewolf to realize that I was lying, but I had better things to focus on like the PSAT that was only a few minutes away.  
In the first few minutes of the test, a girl - Sydney - had passed out. Although she said she was only dizzy, Mrs. Martin - the biology teacher and Lydia’s mother - noticed a lesion on her wrist, but she played it off. Soon enough, the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention had shown up and had put a stop to the test, Malia heard that the police, including my father were outside with the CDC.  
About an hour had passed and Scott and Malia couldn’t control their shifts: Scott’s eyes involuntarily glowed and Malia’s claws wouldn’t retract. Mr. Yukimura hadn’t seen anything like it and we decided we had to isolate the two of them in the Hale vault. As we tried to decipher how to get into the Hale vault through the school, Stiles was getting lightheaded and sweaty and we found lesions on his hand.  
“You’re getting sick,” Kira’s dad announced. “All of you are.”  
I glanced to Kira and she looked fine, when we announced that we were okay, Mr. Yukimura showed Kira her test sheet and she bubbled in her answers outside of the circles.  
“Why isn’t it effecting you?” Malia asked me.  
“I-I don’t know,” my words came out as almost a slur. Everyone looked at me, curious. “I don’t kn-know why th-that happened,” I said slower than I intended to.  
“Are you okay?” Mr. Yukimura asked me. “Do you feel lightheaded? Or do you have a headache?” I shook my head as the only thing I could attribute this to was the fact that I was _something_. Since my voice was my power, whatever was infecting the school was effecting my voice.   
Through the boiler room, we accessed the vault, but we couldn’t get in without a Hale’s claws. Stiles looked to Scott and I hesitantly. All of us had been under the impression that Malia was a Hale, Lydia used her powers to figure out that she was Peter’s daughter. His real daughter. Her name on the recently cracked deadpool showed up as Malia Hale instead of Malia Tate, but all of us were reluctant to tell her that. Scott got Malia to open the vault, putting her under the impression that anyone’s claws could open the gate and Scott didn’t have enough control to bring out his claws willingly.  
Stiles and I stayed in the vault with Scott, Malia, and Kira. Scott and Stiles told us they found a duffle bag full of the money from the Hale vault in Garrett’s locker. Scott, Stiles, and I were being pulled both ways, because while that money belonged to Derek, we all had some financial issues that could easily be solved with the money in that bag. With Stiles’s stay at Eichen House and the MRI we got for him were really putting a lot of weight on our father’s shoulders, even though he would never let us know that while Scott’s mom had been trying to budget the finances in her house, because money was becoming tight with them.  
The disease was taking over quickly, Malia got even sweatier and paler and she began to get lightheaded. Her claws had retracted and her nails and lips began to get lined with a black liquid oozing out of her. Scott told us that everyone was looking for us so Stiles was going to be the one to leave and try and figure out how to stop this. After leaving Malia his sweater, Stiles made me promise to watch over Malia and to make sure she didn't die.  
Soon, I began to feel lightheaded, but I tried to hide it from everyone, because no one knew what was happening with me. Malia’s head lay in my lap and I noticed her temperature drop. She shoved her hands into the pockets of Stiles’s sweater and pulled one out, holding a piece of paper. My face fell as my eyes flashed over to Scott. His eyes went wide as she unfolded the paper that contained the deadpool with her name on it. Her real name.  
“Malia,” I began to protest. Regardless, she still opened it and looked at the page but she didn’t say anything. Silently, my eyes skimmed over it too, but I didn’t see my name on it.  
“Malia?” Scott said.  
Malia whipped her head up from the list. “I can’t see.”  
“What do you mean you can’t see?” I questioned, turning her head to face me. Her eyes seemed to be scanning my face, but I could tell she wasn’t seeing anything.  
“It’s dark - I can’t see anything!” she panted.  
I looked over to Scott, not knowing what to do, only to find him looking at the palm of his hand with wide eyes. “Scott!” I called and his head whipped up to me.  
“It’s-it’s getting blurry! I think it’s happening to me too!”  
“Kira!” I called as I got up when Malia moved off of my lap.  
“It’s happening to me too!” she cried as she crawled along the floor.  
I found the black substance oozing out of Malia’s nose before my vision began to get blurry. My heart pounded with panic as I looked over to Scott who seemed to have lost almost all of his vision. “O-okay! Just stop! Everyone stop!” I demanded as I spun around to look at each of them, but I instantly regretted it when my head began to spin. “Oh God,” I had to sit down to steady my head.  
“What’s wrong!?” Scott’s weak voice rasped out.  
“Nothing!” I lied.  
“Scott!” we heard Stiles call from the other side of the wall. “Scott! There’s reishi mushrooms in a jar in the vault! That’s the cure!” When Scott didn’t answer, Stiles began to bang on the wall. “Giselle!” he called out to me.  
“Where-where are they!?” I called back, even though my vision had been completely lost at this point.  
“There in a jar somewhere on the shelves!”  
I let out a frustrated breath as I slowly got up and began to walk around, feeling out for the shelves. After a minute, I still couldn’t get to the shelves. “Stiles, I-I can’t find it!”  
“You have to! They’re mushrooms in a jar! It’ll cure them!”  
“Scott!” I called as an idea came to my mind. “Scott, answer me!” I yelled hoarsely when he didn’t answer. “Use your eyes! Glow your eyes!”  
While his regular vision was gone, his werewolf eyes could help him see. That’s how Deucalion could see attacks coming at him, aside from his enhanced sense of hearing and touch. After hearing some movement and banging, I heard glass smash to the floor and suddenly I felt rejuvenated. My sight slowly blurred back into focus and came back to me as I felt my dizziness go away. Scott got the door open and Stiles rushed in as all of us were getting better. I tried to act normal, giving Stiles a hug when he pulled me in for one.  
While everyone’s reunions were happy, Malia didn’t feel the same way. Just before she went blind, she saw her real name on the deadpool which didn’t sit well with her. She left the room, leaving my brother, Scott, Kira, and I behind. We finally got out of the school and after Stiles and I reassured my dad that we were okay, Scott pulled me to the side.  
“Are you feeling okay?” I worried.  
“Yeah, I’m a lot better now,” he nodded. “Listen,” he sighed. “When I glowed my eyes, I found the mushrooms because I saw them.”  
“Yeah…?” I trailed off, not knowing where he was going with this.  
“When I saw you, you weren’t anywhere near the shelves like you said you were.” My face fell as I knew that I wouldn’t be able to lie myself out of this one. “What happened to you?”  
“Listen, you can’t say anything to anyone,” I shook my head, speaking lowly. “I don’t know what I am yet, but I’m something and I’m trying to figure it out.”  
“Everyone’s going to find out some time soon-“  
“Maybe not,” I shook my head. “My name wasn’t on the last list, so I think I’m in the clear.” Scott gave me a disapproving look. “I just need to figure out what I am before I tell anyone anything. I need you to not say anything.”  
“Giselle-“  
“Promise me, Scott.”  
After some hesitation, Scott agreed to keep it a secret. “You should talk to Derek,” he added after learning I already asked Deaton for help and that endeavour was unsuccessful. “Maybe he knows something.”  
“Maybe,” I agreed.  
That night, Stiles came into my bedroom looking nervous. “Hey, is everything all right?” my eyebrows pulled together in confusion.  
“Um, I really need to talk to you.”  
“Is it about Malia?” I worried.  
“No,” Stiles shook his head. “I, um…” he trailed off and handed me the deadpool list.  
“I already saw it,” I told him, confused.  
“Did you read all of it?”  
“Yeah all the names-“  
“Not those,” he cut me off before pointing to the top of the page.  
 _CYPHER KEY: GISELLE_ was written at the top. “I thought the cypher keys were the names of people who died.”  
“They are,” Stiles sighed heavily. “We tried every single name of every person who has died in Beacon Hills and they didn’t work.”  
“So how did my name come up?”  
“Lydia, she used her banshee powers and…” he trailed off as he took a seat on my bed. “…she came up with your name as the cypher key and…it worked,” he threw a hand up, obviously hating to have this conversation. He hesitantly looked at me when I sat next to him. “Banshees predict death,” he told me with a strained voice. “And she got your name which means…” he trailed off and looked away from me, hiding the tears that were forming in his eyes.  
“I’m going to die,” I finished.


	38. Chapter 38

All of us had come up with a plan to catch the benefactor that night. It all started with Kira using her kitsune powers to stop Scott’s heart. I had called an ambulance, making up an excuse as to why Scott stopped breathing. I rode in the ambulance with him as I began to perform chest compressions on him. When we got in the ambulance, I didn’t stop and showed my distress to everyone around. Upon our arrival at the hospital, I was on top of Scott, continuing my motions as Dr. Geyer ran up to us in the hallway, getting information on what had happened. He had done everything to resuscitate him but nothing worked and when Dr. Geyer called Scott’s time of death, I let the sobs rip through me as I let my head fall to his chest. It wasn’t hard to fake considering Scott was technically dead beneath me.  
“Someone page Melissa McCall,” the doctor demanded hoarsely, knowing this would destroy her.  
Melissa screamed and cried at the top of her lungs at the information that her son had died. Dr. Geyer tried to calm her down, but I forced myself together and picked her up off of the floor and led her away to the morgue where Scott’s body was waiting for us along with Kira, her mother, Stiles, and Liam.  
“I still hate this plan,” she sighed as she wiped her tears.  
“It’s the only way,” I reminded her. “He’s number one on the list - the benefactor can’t not show up to get the visual confirmation himself since we’re not giving it to him.”  
“We only have 45 minutes,” Mrs. Yukimura reminded us.  
“What happens after 45 minutes?” Melissa asked and the rest of us looked between each other, no one wanting to break the news to her.  
“He dies,” the older kitsune came out with it.  
“So we have to work fast,” I decided.  
Kira, Liam, Stiles, and I were going to monitor the cameras of the hospital while Melissa and Mrs. Yukimura looked out for any unusual people entering the hospital. However, our plan didn't go as we had expected. All of the cameras went out and Argent had found us, telling Stiles and I to go to the morgue and protect the body. However, after a few minutes, we heard fighting happening outside, but neither of us dared to check it.  
“I don’t know what’s happening out there, but it doesn’t sound good,” I said as I gripped my gun tightly in my hand.  
“That’s it,” Stiles huffed and pulled out his phone. “I’m calling Argent.” After multiple attempts at reaching Argent, he wasn’t answering.   
Suddenly, my question was answered when Argent’s body flew past the doors and into the morgue. “Giselle! Stiles! Run!” he groaned out, but before we could, we found Kate at the doorway. I took my stance as I aimed my gun at her to which she laughed at. She had a physique to die for, a bright smile, and the perfect shade of blonde hair that I couldn’t help but notice.  
“Oh sweetheart,” her voice rasped out. “You couldn’t take me on even if you had a whole army behind you.”  
“Want to test that?” I challenged.  
In the blink of an eye, Kate was in front of me as she took hold of the hand that held my gun and began to twist it in a painful way. When I groaned out and Stiles protested, it only fuelled Kate’s laughter and amusement. “I think I passed this test,” she said condescendingly.  
“Actually, I don’t think you have,” I replied calmly before I pulled out a dagger that I had stashed in my utility belt. I used it to stab her side, knowing she would heal from it, but I slammed my knee into the wound that was already healing that knocked the wind out of her and made her release my hand. Argent was able to get the upper hand and put a gun to the bottom of his sister’s chin.  
“Is this your new prodigy?” she questioned but Argent stayed silent.  
“You’re the benefactor,” Stiles concluded.  
“Don’t worry handsome,” she looked to him. “It’s not me.”  
“Then what are you doing here?” I asked.  
“You know your name is on that list too?” Argent said to her.  
“Which is why I’m here,” she spat.  
“We have a plan! Kate, take the berserkers and leave.” Kate’s eyes fell to the smart watch that Argent was wearing that was counting down the time that Scott had left before he couldn’t be revived anymore. “Please,” he begged his sister. “Just go.”  
Reluctantly, she agreed and took the berserkers with her. However, our plan didn’t work. We were cutting it too close to the 45 minute mark, and we got Kira to revive Scott, but she soon left when Liam told her that her mother had gotten hurt by one of the berserkers. The benefactor hadn’t shown up, but Stiles had figured something out that didn’t make this plan totally useless.  
“The benefactor wouldn’t come to get visual confirmation even though Scott’s the most wanted on the list, right?” Stiles said and we all nodded. “Who knows when someone’s died without having to see a body?” he quizzed.  
“A banshee,” Scott answered.  
“Is it…Lydia?” I was almost afraid to say it.  
“No, no,” Stiles shook his head. “Meredith,” he said. “The other banshee - the one in Eichen House that helped Lydia get the second cypher key.”  
“Why would she help Lydia if she’s the one who made the list?” Scott said.  
“Probably to throw suspicion off of herself. I’m going to go check it out,” he told us and after saying his goodbyes, Stiles set off to find Lydia.  
I turned back to Scott who lay in a hospital bed. “How are you feeling?” I checked his temperature with the back of my hand.  
“I’m all right,” he smiled up at me reassuringly. “Have you talked to Derek yet?”  
“No I was going to go sometime later,” I replied, absentmindedly stroking his hair back.  
“Go,” he nodded towards the door. “I’m okay and my mom is in here every five minutes checking on me. The sooner you figure out what you are, the sooner you can get your powers under control, and the less chance you have of…” he trailed off.  
“Dying,” I completed. “You can say it.” Scott sent me a grim look before prompting me to go again and this time I listened.  
I finally got to Derek’s loft and after a knock on the door, Derek slid the door open, wiping the sleep from his eyes as he stood before me, shirtless and some gauze taped to his side. “You’re asleep?” I looked at my watch. “It’s only-“ I cut myself off when I found Braeden asleep in Derek’s bed. “Oh my God!” I began to whisper now. “Why do I always do this!?”  
Derek shut the loft door behind him softly, “It’s okay,” he told me, but it wasn’t.  
I felt my throat closing up as it got harder to breathe. “N-no, it’s not,” I shook my head. “Is this why you weren’t answering my calls or texts?”  
“We were busy-“  
“Oh, I can see that.” I couldn’t look him in the eye right now.  
“She was helping me learn how to use a gun since I’m losing my powers.”  
“I was coming to check on you but it looks like you’re doing great!” my shaky voice spat.  
I noticed the confusion written all over Derek’s face. “Giselle-“ he began to reach over to me but I took a giant step away from him.  
“No, you know what, Derek,” I pointed to him accusatorially. “I cannot believe…” I began to seethe but I stopped myself, retracting my finger back to make a fist with my hand before letting my hand fall to my side. What was I going to say? I cannot believe you’re doing this to me again? That was a surefire way to initiate a conversation that I was not ready for and one that Derek wouldn’t respond kindly to. I let out a shaky breath as I headed for the elevator, deciding it was best to keep my mouth shut and walk away before I said something I regretted.  
“Can’t believe I’m what?” Derek pulled me back, having other plans for this conversation.  
I looked up at him, knowing there was no way I could tell him anything about how I felt - there was no way that was even a possibility anymore. “Doing this to yourself again,” I completed his sentence.  
His face contorted in anger, knowing what I was referring to. “She’s not like that.”  
“No,” I threw my hands up, my frustration and heartache getting the better of me. “At least she’s open about killing people - for money, might I add.”  
“She wouldn’t do that to us - any of us.”  
I began to laugh manically, not caring anymore if Braeden could hear the conversation. “She told Scott that she would kill him if the money was good!” I stressed, remembering what Scott told me when he went to the church with Braeden in Mexico to retrieve Derek.  
“That was before she knew any of us,” Derek spoke lowly and I knew he was trying his best to keep his anger in check. “She was also paid to save me and Isaac. She might even do it for you one day.”  
“Not in this lifetime,” I spat before turning and leaving the corridor as I tried to let my tears fall down my face silently.  
When I got home, I let my tears fall freely, even muffling my sobs with my pillow. I realized how the pain in my chest multiplied at the familiar sight this time around. Could I blame him, though? For feeling something for someone who wasn’t me? I hadn’t given him any reason to try and pursue me if that was ever his intention.  
Soon, a pain in my head accommodated the pain in my chest from all the crying. I sat up in my bed, rubbing the sides of my head as I tried to stop the pain somehow, but nothing worked. I felt sick to my stomach, sick because it should’ve been me in his bed instead of her. Sick because I wasted my time and lost my opportunity. Sick because I brought all this pain onto myself and now there was nothing I could do to stop it.  
I jumped up from my bed as I began to pace around the room, rubbing my eyes because whenever I closed them, all I could think about was her touching him and him touching her. Where a spark-like sensation was left on their skin from their shared kisses and touches, I got burned and the pain was so unbearable that I felt like puking. I was desperate for things to be different somehow - whether I tried again to tell him what I was feeling or maybe a scenario where he told me he felt the same way as me.  
But he didn’t. I let my knees give out from under me, forcing me to sit on the ground. I curled up into the smallest ball that I could but it all hurt the same. I was exhausted from the back and forth of he likes me, he likes me not but in the end, this is what I deserved.

“What the hell happened?” I rushed into the hospital room to my father who was sitting up in the bed wearing a hospital gown with an IV in his arm.  
“Giselle, it’s nothing,” he shook his head.  
“Deputy Haig shot him,” Stiles answered in between biting the nail of his thumb, a nervous habit he had.  
“What!?” my head whipped to my brother.  
“Listen,” he lowered his voice and put a hand to my arm. “Parrish is something - we don’t know what yet, but Haig tried to light him on fire - to get the 5 million that Parrish was worth. He didn’t die though, he was completely fine just…charred.”  
“Maybe it has to do with what he is.”  
“Lydia took him to the loft, maybe Derek knows what he is.”  
I only hummed, the name leaving a sour taste in my mouth and an empty feeling in my stomach. Soon, a doctor came in and gave my father some forms to fill out as he told him that he was scheduled for surgery tomorrow. However, my father asked him about the Patient Responsibility part of the form, the doctor explained that it was the expenses that came from the procedure and the hospital stay that had to be covered by dad’s insurance.   
I glanced over to Stiles, knowing that this was putting a dent in our already large debt. I felt my eyes begin to water as I looked down to the floor when the doctor left the room. We were facing a lot of financial issues at the moment, and I don’t know how another procedure and hospital stay would sit with these problems. On top of that, seeing my father in a hospital bed wasn’t even the last thing I wanted to see. I wanted to help him get better and fast so I wouldn’t have to stomach the sight for much longer.  
“Hey, stop that,” my father told us as he noticed our glassy eyes and fidgeting. “I was just curious about the terminology, it’s not like we’re in any kind of dire stress.”  
Stiles glanced to me hesitantly before speaking, “we know about the bills from Eichen House, dad. And the MRI.”  
“And the advance from the department on your credit cards,” I added.  
“Have you two been going through my stuff?” my dad demanded.  
“Yeah, when you keep things from us,” I fired back.  
“I keep things from you guys, because there’s some things that you don’t need to know.”  
“Yes we do!” Stiles interjected. “How the hell else are we supposed to take care of you?”  
“You’re not supposed to take care of me!” my dad yelled. “You two are the kids, and I’m the dad,” he finished at a lower volume. “I take care of you.”  
When Stiles fell silent and sat down, I stayed standing and folded my arms, “We’re supposed to take care of each other.” My dad let out a sigh before holding out his good hand for me to take. I walked over and placed my hand in his, letting my momentarily tough exterior fall.  
“We’re going to be okay,” he told my brother and I.  
“How do you know, dad?” Stiles asked from his chair.  
“I don’t. But the morphine’s kicking in and I’m not worried about anything right now.” Soon after, my father fell asleep, leaving Stiles and I to ruminate.  
“You know,” Stiles began as I gently let go of my father’s hand and turned to him. “That bag of money under Scott’s bed, the one he found in Garrett’s locker, from the benefactor…it could help.”  
I sighed as I sat next to him. “I know,” I nodded. “It’s tempting, but it’s not ours.”  
“I know,” Stiles sighed in frustration. “I know, but…but some of that money is Peter’s. And we keep pretending like he’s one of the good guys but he’s not.”  
“It still belongs to him, whether we like it or not.”

My dad’s surgery the next morning was successful and school had carried on as normal, but tonight there was a bonfire that the lacrosse team was a part of. Scott had asked me to go with him, telling me that he needed to talk to me, and although a bonfire was hardly the most appropriate place to talk, I agreed, because I needed to get out of the house and stop thinking about Derek.  
“Scott!” I called over the music as I pushed past the crowd and towards him that evening.  
The back field of the school was filled with the lacrosse team and a plethora of other students as a fire brewed right in the centre of it. The DJ and his booth stood tall in front of the dancing and drinking students. “Hey!” he smiled to me as we walked through the jumping and dancing teenagers. “I need your help tonight, to make sure no one gets hurt!”  
“I’m here if you need me!”  
We soon found Malia and Liam trying to get drunk, but their healing abilities somehow prevented that. Scott tried to explain to Malia why we kept the secret about Peter from her.  
“Hey! What did you want to talk to me about?” I asked my friend once we walked away from Malia.  
“There’s another list.”  
“I thought there were only three?”  
“There was but the last one - it was edited somehow. Derek isn’t on it anymore and Liam’s worth a lot more now!”  
“Do the two of them know?”  
“Yeah, but that’s not it-”  
“Whoa!” I rushed over to Liam who began to stumble. I caught him before he fell. “Are you all right?”  
“Y-yeah, I’m okay,” he nodded.  
“Are you drunk?”  
“I-I don’t know, I’ve never been drunk before.”  
I looked over to Scott, worriedly before he rushed over to check on Malia. He eventually brought her over to the picnic table that Liam and his friend Mason were sitting on. “I don’t think they’re drunk,” Scott said.  
“What is it then?”  
Scott looked around. “I-I don’t know,” he soon began to stumble.  
“We have to figure it out soon, because whatever it is, it’s effecting you too.”  
“How much did you guys drink?” Mason asked the Malia and Scott. “Because Liam didn’t drink enough to get this wasted.”  
“Nothing,” Scott answered. “It’s the music,” he realized soon after. If Scott was completely sober, whatever was effecting him had to be in the atmosphere and right now, that was the music blaring from the speakers in the front of the yard. “Giselle, Mason, don’t let them out of your sight, I have to stop it,” he stood up, using the picnic table to steady himself.  
“Scott-“ I began to call, but he was already taking off towards the DJ booth.  
Not long after, three security guards approached us and began to take Malia and Liam by the arms. “Wait, wait!” I called, stepping in front of them. “You can’t take them, they’re just…tired.”  
“Sure, tired,” the man replied sarcastically. “I’ve heard that about a million times.”  
He shoved past me, making me trip. “Giselle!” Mason gasped as he caught me.  
Then, one of the security guards turned to me. “You can come too, sweetheart.” He tugged on my arm and pulled me out of Mason’s grasp, warning Mason not to follow us. They pulled the four of us into the school. Malia and Liam were unconscious by now and Scott was hanging on by a thread.  
“What’s going on here?” I glared up at one of the men, noticing the red canister he was holding in his hand. “What is that?”  
“Gasoline,” he unscrewed the top. “Haig said we have to burn you.” Despite my protests, the man poured the liquid all over the four of us, when I tried to get up to take it away from him, he kicked me back down to the floor, knocking the wind out of me before kneeling before me. He flicked open a zippo lighter and lit the flame, smiling at the sight of it. I leaned forward and blew the flame out which earned me a punch across the face.  
Suddenly, with glowing red eyes, Scott grabbed the man’s hand and broke it, making him slowly fall to the ground. From the stairwell beside me, I found Braeden jumping out with her gun and kicking the man straight down to the linoleum floor. Right behind her was Derek who took out three of the men with his fighting skills before Braeden snapped the neck of the man on the floor in front of me. Their longing, proud look shared between Braeden and Derek was enough to roll my eyes. “I’d rather be set on fire,” I muttered.  
Standing above Scott and I now, Derek held out a hand to Scott who then held out a hand for me. I avoided looking at Derek at all costs as I looked over to Liam and Malia who were on their feet. Once I made sure the both of them were okay, I headed back over to Scott whose conversation with Derek had just ended. Braeden was beside Derek now and I couldn’t help but notice the look she was giving me from the corner of my eye.  
“I’m going to go now,” I told Scott quietly.  
“Are you okay to go home alone?”  
“Yeah,” I nodded. “Don’t worry about it,” I sent him a smile before walking away from the three of them, acting as if two of them weren’t there to begin with. But they were.  
It sent my emotions into overdrive the second I stepped foot in my empty house that night. I headed straight up to my room, sobbing like I had been for the past few days. I knew seeing them together was going to be hard, but I didn’t know it was going to be this hard. I had tried so hard to mentally prepare myself for seeing that, but I don’t think any amount of visualizing myself standing taller and stronger in the likes of them would ever prepare me for the crippling feeling in my chest.  
My door burst open suddenly and I used the fact that my back was facing it to remove my tears as quickly and discreetly as possible. “Hey,” I said, not knowing for sure who was even behind me.  
“Benny, are you crying?” I heard Stiles ask over the shuffling of some paper.  
“No,” I breathed a laugh as best as I could, turning to him and putting on a brave face. I found Stiles next to Scott as they both stood a few feet away from me.  
“Is it about…” Scott trailed off, a pained look in his eyes.  
“…a boy?” Stiles finished with a sigh.  
I let my head drop as a new wave of tears hit me. I simply nodded, not being able to speak. I felt the both of them pull me into a tight hug. It was so tight that almost almost everything that Derek had shattered in me were put together again.


	39. Chapter 39

When I arrived at Argent’s warehouse that afternoon, I found him along with Scott, Kira, Stiomi, and her pack. They had been found by a group of people who had gotten a hold of the deadpool. They were a pack that were disconnected from everyone and everything, trying to live their purest life in the woods, but the assassins had contradicted that lifestyle. They were all seeking refuge in the warehouse, an offer made by Scott to keep them safe while we tried to figure out how to stop the deadpool. There were many plastic sheets covering different parts of the well-lit and spacious warehouse. A few crates were scattered around the room and were most likely filled with weapons.  
“A group of people were hunting them last night,” Scott told me.  
“We held them off, but we don’t know when they’re going to attack again,” Kira added.  
“So they’re staying here?” I looked through each of the pack members. I was familiar with Brett and I met his sister Lori. She was a few years younger than us with short blonde hair and a bright, kiddish smile.  
“We have to protect them if whoever was trying to kill them last night, tries to kill them again,” Argent said.  
“Have you heard anything from Lydia or Stiles or your dad?” Scott asked.  
I went on to explain how Stiles and Lydia visited Eichen House to find the files of the deceased patients that showed up on the final deadpool list. Lydia broke the cypher key for that list only to realize that everyone on it had already passed away. After bribing Brunski, he gave them access to the records room where he proceeded to tell Lydia that he killed her grandmother many years ago who was also a banshee. Brunski had a track record of murdering some of the supernatural patients in Eichen and framing them as a suicide. After Brunski almost killed Stiles and Lydia, Meredith had saved them and killed him. She staged her own suicide and eluded to the fact that she was the benefactor. “She’s at the station with my dad and Lydia. They’ve tried every possible thing to try and make her talk, but…” I trailed off and shrugged my shoulders.  
“That’s Lydia’s priority right now,” Argent said. “Right now, we have to protect Sitomi and her pack.”  
“I called Derek and Braeden, they’re on their way,” Scott said, sending me an apologetic look. I explained everything to him and Stiles last night, but I made them promise that this wouldn’t effect anything. Stiles and Scott also talked to me about the edited list. I was on it this time. Lydia was the only other person who saw this list besides the boys and they promised to keep it secret.  
“Good,” Argent nodded to Scott before looking at me. “You have enough to fight against a few assassins?”  
“I’m pretty sure,” I nodded, feeling around for my gun, taser, and daggers.

About an hour later, Argent and I were lining the warehouse with motion sensors and I couldn’t help but feel a pair of eyes watching me. The hopeful part of me thought it was Derek, missing me and realizing how he messed up. The rational part of me thought it was Scott, worrying about me now that Derek and Braeden were in my presence.  
A few minutes once we finished setting up the motion sensors, they went off which made everyone’s head snap in unison towards the entrance. A pair of grenades were thrown into the warehouse, followed by the sounds of gunfire. Men in bulletproof vests, helmets, and large guns ambushed us, forcing everyone to take cover. I reached out occasionally to fire some shots as I crouched behind a pillar next to Argent.  
Eventually, I got out from behind my hiding spot and teamed up with Brett and Lori. I had to give these assassins one thing, they didn’t go down easily. The three of us were barely able to hold them off, but we managed it as Scott, Derek, Argent, Braeden, Stiomi, and the rest of her pack took on multiple other assassins. Throughout our fighting, the three of us separated which gave Scott a chance to instruct me to tell Sitomi’s pack members to go.  
I ran throughout the warehouse, searching for more pack members to relay the message to. I soon stumbled upon Lori who was looking around for her brother, but unbeknownst to her, she found herself in the crosshairs of an assassin. “Lori!” I cried as I sprinted towards her. She turned to face me just as I tackled her to the ground. Once I got a hold on her, I heard a bullet be fired before a searing pain hit my leg. Scott took out the assassin as I propped myself up against a wall, looking at my now bleeding thigh.  
“I’m-I’m so sorry!” Lori cried as she looked at my leg.  
“It’s not your fault,” I panted as I shook my head. “Find your pack and get out of here,” I instructed with the strongest voice that I could. When she tried to protest, I demanded that she leave. Before she could act on her instructions, all the gunfire ceased as the sounds of beeping and vibrating phones replaced the noise. I watched as each of them retreated out from the way they came from.  
“They did it,” Scott announced when it was just us and Sitomi’s pack. “Stiles and Malia, they stopped the deadpool.”  
Everyone looked to each other, relieved. I pressed down on the wound in my thigh as I sent a smile over to Lori, glad that she and the rest of her kind were safe. Lori’s face fell when she remembered I had gotten injured. “G-guys!” she called over their celebration.  
Everyone turned to us and Scott, Kira, and Derek rushed over, noticing my hands being covered in the blood of my leg. “What happened?” Scott asked me as he took hold of my hands and began to take away my pain.  
“I think it’s just a graze,” I panted.  
“We have to get you to a hospital,” Kira said.  
I looked over at Scott, knowing that he was the only person that knew where I should go instead. Subtly, he nodded and scooped me up in his arms.  
“Where are you taking her?” Derek questioned as Scott walked past him.  
Scott turned his head to look at Derek over his shoulder. “Deaton’s.”  
“Scott,” Derek placed a hand on his shoulder. “She needs to go to a hospital - there’s nothing that Deaton can do that the doctors at the hospital can’t.”  
“Derek, we know what we’re doing,” Scott promised, trying to cut this conversation off so he wouldn’t be forced to tell Derek what was going on with me.  
Derek stepped in front of us. “No, you don’t-“  
“Derek,” I cut him off, unable to look at him. “I’m losing blood and you stopping us from going where I need to go, isn’t helping. So just…get out of the way,” I said the last part a lot softer than I ever intended it too.  
Silently but with a look of confusion, Derek stepped aside and Scott continued to carry me out of the warehouse.

“I thought that I should come here,” I said to Deaton as Scott set me down on the metal table. “Considering I’m… _something_.”  
“I think this is the perfect opportunity to test your abilities,” Deaton mused as he stared at the bullet graze in my leg. “Giselle, I want you to try and heal yourself.”  
I looked over to Scott, confused on how to do it. Scott simply shrugged and I looked over to Deaton. “How do I do that?”  
“Try picturing the wound healing itself. It helps if you picture it going away the way that Scott’s wounds heal.”  
I looked down at thigh and looked at the wound. I remember seeing the way that Scott’s wounds healed right before my eyes when I was first learning about him becoming a werewolf. The skin had patched itself up, something that never ceased to amaze me. I tried to see my skin coming together and sealing the wound as my muscle tissues repaired the dent made by the bullet.  
My jaw dropped as I saw the wound healing the way Scott’s did - it was slower, but it was still something. “O-Oh my God!” I laughed in delight as I looked to Scott. His eyes were as wide as saucers as he glanced between me and my leg. “I did that!” I exclaimed.  
“Maybe once you figure out what you are, healing will come naturally to you. With some practice,” Deaton grinned as he folded his arms across his chest proudly.

That night, my dad, Stiles, and Malia all showed up at my door. “Come on,” dad smiled. “I’m taking you three out to dinner.”  
I put my pen down as I turned to them in my chair. “Is that a…a, uh, good idea?” I asked cautiously, silently reminding him of our debts.  
“Eichen House is dropping the payment!” Stiles announced excitedly.  
“Really?” I smiled.  
“Considering Stiles and Lydia almost died when they were there, they decided to drop the payments as a way to say sorry,” Malia explained.  
“Okay,” I beamed as I stood up. “Let me get my jacket and I’ll meet you downstairs.”  
Stiles rushed towards the stairs, excited to go out to eat while Malia followed him downstairs at her regular saunter, dad, however, stood at my door. “You know,” he shoved his hands in his pocket. “You could invite Derek.”  
My heart dropped at the sound of his name. My dad hadn’t known anything that was happening with that situation, considering my teenage girl instincts to shut my parent out of my love life. “That’s really nice of you to offer,” I smiled as best as I could, not wanting him to catch onto anything so I wouldn’t have to explain the tiring and complicated situation. “But he’s a little busy tonight. You know, the whole…supernatural thing.”  
Dad hummed in response. “Well, next time,” he beamed before leaving my door.  
“Sure,” I sighed. “Next time.”

I flopped down on my bed, exhausted and currently in a food coma. Dinner was very fulfilling - physically and emotionally. I was starving by the time we got to the restaurant and I could consider myself as an emotional eater. With everything happening around me with Derek, figuring out what I was, and dealing with the fact that death was just around the corner, I could say eating helped to minimize that stress. I turned over onto my side, ready to fall asleep with all of my clothes on, but dad called me from downstairs, telling me Lydia was here.  
With all of the might that I had, I pushed myself off of my bed and opened my door to find Lydia standing before me. Her eyes were shallow as her hair and clothes were sopping wet from the rainstorm outside. “Did you walk all the way here?” I reached out to place a hand on her arm, but it quickly retreated once she began to scream her banshee scream. I clutched my ears as tightly as I could, but to no avail, the sound of her scream invaded my ears. The feeling of doom pended in my chest, knowing what that scream meant and knowing that it was just for me.

“He hasn’t answered any of his texts or calls,” Stiles told me at the lacrosse game the next night.  
“It’s not like Scott to do this,” I shook my head as I stay on the bench next to him and the rest of the team. “Especially since it’s the first game of the season and he is your best player.”  
“Kira’s missing too,” Liam added. “I haven’t seen her around school or heard anything from her.”  
“They had to have been together then,” I suggested.  
“It’s not anymore assassins,” Stiles pieced together.  
“It has to be Kate.” The boys turned to me at my revelation. “While the deadpool has been shut down, she’s still roaming freely.”  
“Giselle!” I heard my dad call from the stands as he sat next to Malia. He had been very protective ever since last night. When Stiles reluctantly explained what Lydia’s screaming meant, dad did everything he could to keep his eye on me.  
“I’ll go but tell me if they contact you,” I said to Stiles. “Either of you,” my glance flickered to Liam before I jogged over to the seat next to my father.  
By the second half of the game, Stiles had asked our dad to put out an APB for Scott. We had to exhaust all of our options before we could jump to the idea that Kate and the berserkers took Scott and Kira all the way to Mexico.


	40. Chapter 40

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqwQAk4aJ1E

“He’s not letting us go to Mexico, is he?” I asked Stiles when he climbed into the jeep that sat in the station’s parking lot the next morning.  
“No shot,” he sighed in aggravation, starting the car.  
“So, we’re going to have to sneak out to Mexico,” I looked over at him.  
“Unfortunately,” Stiles started the car.  
I threw my head back against the seat with a sigh. “That makes this so much harder,” I groaned.

When we told dad we were going on another camping trip, we packed a bag for Mexico, just in case this trip took longer than expected. Stiles, Malia, Liam, and I showed up in the blue jeep at Derek’s apartment building when he pulled up in his jeep with Peter. Braeden showed up in a prison transport van which she got with her U.S. Marshall title. I was still undecided about whether that title was something she really earned, or just a prop badge she waved around to get information from the government.  
We needed something with higher security to make sure Liam didn’t shift on the way there since tonight was a full moon and he still hadn’t learned how to control his shift yet. He wanted to help his alpha, which I found sweet, in a sense, although I would never say that out loud.  
While Lydia was supposed to show up, we decided to leave without her. She was at the school trying to get a cardigan from Kira’s locker so the werewolves could catch a scent. Liam told us that Mason would check on her since he was already at the school. Peter and Malia decided to take Derek’s jeep and considering I didn’t want to get in between the “father-daughter bonding” that was going to take place, so I decided to get into the back of the van with Stiles, Liam, and Derek while Braeden drove.

I sat beside Liam as I helped Derek handcuff him to the bars that sat right under the seat. When nightfall came, Liam began to start to feel the effects of the full moon.  
“Liam,” Derek handed him the talisman that had the triskelion engraved on it. “Look at each of the spirals they each represent something, alpha, beta, omega. It reminds us that we can rise from one position to another and fall the same way. Look at the talisman and repeat the words, alpha, beta, omega.”  
“Alpha, beta-“  
“Slower,” Derek prompted as Liam tried to speed through the words, desperate to get himself under control.  
“Alpha,” Liam panted. “Beta, omega.”  
“Good, say it again.”  
“Alpha, beta, omega.”  
“Keep going.”  
Liam panted and when he raised his head, we could all see the glowing eyes and sharp fangs. “Alpha, beta, omega…” his voice had gotten considerably deeper as his shift became more prominent.  
I sat as far back as I could from Liam before he swung out his cuffed arm to get at anyone he could. As Liam continued to fight against the restraints, the whole vehicle began to rock as Braeden desperately called out to Derek to get Liam under control. Liam’s force caused the chains of one of the handcuffs to snap. His head whipped to my direction as he raised his clawed hand, but before I could react, I felt Derek pull me out of my seat and over to his lap. I let out the breath I’d been holding in as my heart pounded in my chest. With his other hand, Derek grabbed onto Liam’s clawed hand and held it as far away from us as possible.  
“I don’t think “alpha, beta, omega” is really working!” Stiles called over Liam’s growls.  
“Do you know any other mantras!?” Derek spat.  
“I do actually,” my brother realized. “Liam! What three things cannot long be hidden!?” Liam glanced to him before turning his attention back to Derek and I. Stiles called him again, demanding him to answer the question.  
“The sun, the moon, the truth,” Liam panted as he began to stop fighting against the restraints. “The sun, the moon, the truth,” he repeated as his eyes shifted back to green and his fangs and claws retracted.  
Derek slowly let Liam’s arm go as I felt relief wash over my body. I instantly went rigid as I recognized the feel of Derek’s arm around my waist. When the van came to a stop, I wriggled my way out of his grasp a little more aggressively than needed.  
“Do you think you can bring this level of control inside the church?” Stiles asked Liam who responded with voluntarily extended his claws.  
“We should go,” I decided as I stood up. I opened the doors of the van only to stare a berserker right in the face, bear skull and all. My face fell at the sight before I was grabbed by the collar of my shirt and slammed into the dirt outside. Everyone called out for me as my back was slammed against a boulder and the berserker towered over me. He threw a few punches but he let his last hit come from the clawed bone that protruded from the wrist of his costume. The second it invaded my torso, my eyes went wide as I felt the air being sucked out of me. My mouth was agape as I realized I had just been stabbed with the sharp that protruded from the berserker’s wrist. My heart thudded at the pain and the realization that this was it. Lydia’s prediction was coming true and the proof was in the hole in my torso.  
Upon multiple gun shots at it, the berserker fled as my mouth pooled with blood. Stiles sprinted over to me, picking up my head. “Benny-”  
“I’m okay,” I panted, trying my best to seem as okay as I could in this state. “You need to find Scott and Kira.”  
“Benny, I’m not leaving-”  
“Stiles!” I yelled as loud as I could, watching his eyes pool up with tears. “You need to go. Do it now. Do it for me.” Stiles stayed though, holding the upper half of my body as now everyone stared at us. “You have to make sure that at least _they_ come out alive.”  
Stiles pulled my head up to his as he placed a kiss on my forehead. “You need to come out alive too,” his voice quivered.  
“I’m going to try my hardest, I promise Mischief,” a stray tear slid down my cheek as I realized this would be the last time I’d see my brother again. “I love you.”  
“I love you, but you’re going to be alive when I come back,” he lay me down gently as the others began to head into the church.  
I nodded and sent him off with the others until it was just Derek, Braeden, and I. Not exactly the position I wanted to find myself in when I died. Derek’s eyes were on me as they glistened and Braeden’s eyes stayed on him. “Giselle,” he rushed over to me, picking up my upper half and letting it lean against his chest as he sat against the rock. He stroked my hair back as his eyes got glassier.  
“Derek,” I sighed, immediately getting comfortable in his hold. “It’s okay.”  
“No,” he demanded. “Don’t do that. You’re not allowed to do that.” I let my head fall against his chest as my hands became slippery with my own blood. Derek’s eyes flickered up at Braeden. “Keep a lookout,” he said to her. “Kate could be around any corner.” As he told her this, I tried to focus my energy on healing the way Deaton taught me to, but I couldn’t do it. This wound was too big for me to heal - it was a stab wound all the way through and whatever I was, I wasn’t even fully…it.  
I watched Braeden’s eyes flicker between the two of us, but there was no malicious emotion in it, more so sadness. She obliged to Derek’s request and walked off and away from us. Derek gripped my hand in his tightly and I watched his face contort in concentration.  
“What are you doing?” my eyebrows pulled together in confusion, my voice as soft as air on a spring day.  
“I…I can’t do it,” Derek almost sobbed. “I can’t take your pain.”  
“I know,” I smirked. “It’s all gone, isn’t it? Even the eyes?” Derek silently nodded as his hand transferred to cup my cheek. “It’s okay,” I whispered. “I think you’ll be all right.”  
“So will you,” he promised as he held me tighter to him and looked me in the eyes, almost sealing the promise.  
“Derek,” I smirked. “We know it’s not looking good for me and Lydia knew it.”  
“You’re not going to die,” a tear slipped down Derek’s cheek.  
I raised my hand up to his face to wipe it away and he leaned into my touch. “I’m sorry,” I told him. “For everything I said and everything I did.”  
Derek shushed me as he took my hand in his and brought it to his quivering lips. “You don’t have anything to be sorry for. It was me, it was all me,” he cried freely now, something I thought I’d never see him do.  
“No, you can’t do that to yourself.” My mind flickered to my father and Stiles. “You c-can’t let Stiles and my father do that to themselves. You have to promise me that you won’t l-let this ruin their lives. _Especially_ Stiles’s.”  
“Giselle, you’re not-“  
“Derek, _please_ promise me,” I pleaded. I knew that he didn’t want to accept the fact that my life was coming to an end, but this was important to me and I wouldn’t stop persisting, because this was important to me.  
He sighed, abandoning any protests he had planned to present. “Okay,” he whispered.  
“I couldn’t stand it,” I confessed, knowing that my time was running out and I wouldn’t get another chance to say this as my eyes filled with tears. “I couldn’t stand seeing you with anyone else.”  
Derek let all of his guards down as his head dropped down to mine as he cried, letting it all out. “I’m sorry. I was _such_ an idiot.”  
“No. I didn’t give you any reason to-“  
“I took all the things - the things you said about not wanting your dad to see us together, the way you began to…not need me anymore. The way you didn’t need me to protect you, or save you,” his body trembled against mine.  
“I _always_ needed you, Derek,” I sighed a laugh at his foolish words. “It’s always been you, Derek, I don’t know how you didn’t see that.” I brought my hand up to his face and just as it began to fall from my sudden lack of strength, he grabbed it and held it against his cheek.   
“You can’t die,” he shook his head furiously. “You can’t leave me, not now. Not before we’ve had our chance.”  
“We were dumb to let the opportunities pass us by, weren’t we?” I smirked as I tasted the blood pooling in my mouth.  
“We won’t let them pass us again,” he promised, clutching my hand in his. “You have to stay alive, so we can be together.”  
“I…” my voice faltered, not being able to say how I truly felt, not even in this moment.  
“I swear, I won’t let anything get in the way of us again, but you have to stay alive,” he pleaded as our faces were inches apart. “Not Braeden, not Peter.”  
“Peter?” I questioned, not expecting to hear him come up in this conversation.  
“He…” his eyes left mine. “He said…” Derek’s voice began to fade out as the weight of my eyes shut themselves for me. “Giselle!” he shook me awake. “You have to stay awake.”  
I knew there was no other chance to say what I was going to say and now that my time was running out, it was the last chance I’d get. “Derek,” I whispered his name for the last time. “I always thought you were so beautiful.” My words tore a sob through him. “I just wanted you to know that,” I smiled at him as best as I could.  
Derek raised my head towards his and pressed his lips to mine. The passion of the kiss gave me energy as I reciprocated, feeling every emotion that I had ever felt for him all at once. All of the infatuation I had towards him when I first got a good look at him, all of the confusion when everyone saw what took me too long to see, all the pain from seeing him with other women, and all of the joy I felt in this moment right now.  
“I’m counting that as our _real_ first kiss,” I commented once I pulled away which made him laugh but only for a moment and that was something I was happy to see right before I died. “Tell my dad that I love him so much and that I am _so_ proud of him. And you need to tell Stiles that it wasn’t his fault - tell him _I_ told him that - he needs to know that he was a good brother and that my dad was an amazing father.”  
Derek nodded, “I will.”  
“And _you_ ,” I smiled up at him. “I couldn’t have loved _anyone_ more than I loved you.”  
“I love you, Giselle,” he whispered to me as he stroked my hair and rocked us back and forth.  
“And I loved you, Derek Hale.” My eyes began to close against my will and against Derek’s protests. Was I sad to leave everything behind? Of course. Was I glad that it was me in this position rather than anyone else? Of course. In my last moments, I couldn’t help but think of Allison, and wonder if this is what she was feeling before she died. When all my senses started to fade, I swore, I saw her.


	41. Chapter 41

“Get her on the table,” Dr. Deaton instructed Derek as Scott, Kira, Malia, Stiles, and Liam followed him into the clinic. It was early that morning and the bright and warm sun was streaming in through the windows. The distressed group worked fast to do anything to revive their friend. Once the table was cleared, Derek put Giselle down, his hand grasping onto hers. Her shirt had an alarming amount of blood on it.  
“Y-you can help her right?” Stiles sniffled as the tears didn’t stop falling down his face. He had drove his fastest and broke every driving law there was to get here. Dr. Deaton stayed quiet as he examined Giselle’s injury.  
“The berserker pierced her all the way through,” Derek told him.  
Upon hearing this information, Dr. Deaton felt around the back of Giselle’s waist to find that there was no exit wound, he knew that she was already healing.  
“Giselle!” everyone heard the Sheriff’s voice boom from the entrance of the clinic outside.  
“Dad!” Stiles cried as he went out to let his father in.  
“What happened to her?” Giselle’s father glanced around to everyone in the room, hastily. He shoved through everyone in the room to get to his daughter. “Why is she here and not at a hospital?” he demanded of Stiles.  
“Because she’s something,” Scott confessed.  
“What!?” Derek exclaimed, this being the first he’s hearing about Giselle’s situation.  
“She was on the third list,” Stiles added. “The edited one.”  
“What is she?” Scott looked to Deaton.  
“I’m not too sure yet,” Dr. Deaton continued to examine Giselle’s wound.  
“Why aren’t you doing anything!?” the Sheriff demanded, getting angry at the veterinarian's calm demeanour.  
“Dad!” Stiles scolded him, pulling his father out of the room to console him.  
Derek’s eyes couldn’t leave Giselle’s lifeless body. She was so vulnerable now and he wouldn’t let anymore harm come to her if he could help it. The way her limbs had no control to them, the way her head lolled to the side was enough to make Derek sick to his stomach. The scent of her blood made his head spin as the feeling of nausea increased within him. Once she had passed out, the answer to his declining powers was answered. He had evolved, now having the ability to turn into a full wolf. With his hearing back, he could hear the faintest thudding of her heart, signalling that she still had a chance. If she really was something like Scott and Stiles had said, then she would have a higher chance of surviving. “Why aren’t you doing anything?” Derek questioned as he took some of Giselle’s pain. Derek’s phone had rung again in his pocket for the fifth time since they arrived to the clinic. He huffed as he ripped the phone from out of his pocket. It was Braeden. Derek knew she wasn’t going to stop calling, so he figured that he would answer, let her say her piece, and then leave him alone so he could focus on Giselle without interruption. He pressed a kiss to her knuckles as he excused himself, hoping to make this quick. “What?” he spat once he was out of the room.  
“I hope you don’t plan on staying long,” Braeden’s sharp voice said.  
“What do you want? I don’t have time for this.”  
“We had a deal, Derek,” Braeden enunciated his name. “I help you find Kate, you help me find the Desert Wolf.”  
“Deal’s off,” Derek’s voice was dangerously low.  
“That’s not how this works. You know the consequence. Either you come help me find the Desert Wolf, or I find you and kill you.”  
“You can keep the money we gave you.”  
“It’s not about the money, I can’t hunt the Desert Wolf without you.”  
“You’ve gotten this far without me,” Derek pointed out.  
“Look,” Braeden sighed. “I’m outside. If you’re not in 5 minutes, then I come in there and kill you in front of all those kids.”  
Derek leaned his head against the wall that Giselle was on the other side of. He couldn’t leave her now, not when they finally had their chance to be together. If he chose to go against Braeden, he knew that he wouldn’t ever be able to have his chance with Giselle, because he would be dead, but if he went with her, he could always return to her and they could be together.  
“Derek,” Braeden’s voice pushed his thoughts out of the way to make room for her. “I’m waiting.”  
“Fine,” Derek forced out before hanging up more aggressively than needed.  
He took a moment to rethink his decision, but after considering Braeden’s success in hunting werewolves, surviving against the alpha pack, and the way Giselle would view him if he killed Braeden, he knew that he didn't have any other choice than to comply.

When he got to the door of the surgery, he got one last look at the woman he was leaving behind. The constant reminder that he could return to her made him move towards the door of the clinic. No matter how much his heart begged him to stay until she at least woke up, so she wouldn’t have to hear about his disappearance from anyone else, Derek knew Braeden would never give him the option to do that, and there was no telling when she would wake up. If she did.

“Where are you going?” Stiles called as he and his father watched Derek heading towards the door.  
Derek turned towards Giselle’s family. “I have to go,” was all he could say.  
“Where?” Stiles spat. “Where the hell else is so much more important than being by Giselle’s side, right now?”  
“I made a deal with Braeden-”  
“Let me get this straight,” the Sheriff took a step in front of his son. “You’re leaving my daughter - the one who loves you profusely and who you claim to love - for another woman?” He could see it in his daughter’s eyes anytime Derek was mentioned. The way her chest would jump at the sudden sharp intake of air she would involuntarily take, the way her cheeks turned red, and how clumsy she would become with her words when he was the topic of conversation. Stiles had mentioned Derek’s possible attraction to Giselle on multiple occasions, taking note of how their fights weren’t the kind of fights friends had - they were ones fuelled with more emotions than either of them cared to admit, how they had become somewhat of a team over the past few years, and how they would catch glances at the other when they thought no one was looking.  
“Sheriff, it’s not like that,” Derek defended himself. “I can’t break this deal.”  
“And this deal wouldn’t have happened if you weren't rolling around the sheets with yet another murderer,” Stiles said, getting in Derek’s face now. “You don’t deserve her.”  
For the first time, Derek agreed with Stiles. “I’m coming back for her,” he promised.  
“Like hell you are,” Giselle’s father spat. “If you think there’s ever going to be another chance for you to set my daughter up to hurt her, you’re delusional. If you come back and you get anywhere near her, I will take care of you myself,” he threatened. “Werewolf or not.”  
“I wouldn't expect anything less,” Derek said before turning and leaving the clinic.

“She’s healing from that?” Liam questioned in astonishment.  
“It looks like it,” Dr. Deaton mused as he cleaned away the blood. “If she wasn’t, she’d be dead by now.”  
“She’s not?” Liam glanced to everyone in the room.  
“Listen closely,” Scott prompted his beta.  
After a moment of silence, Liam’s face lit up. “She’s still alive!”  
“Barely,” Dr. Deaton brought the young beta’s enthusiasm down.   
“How is she healing if she’s almost dead?” Kira asked.  
“The other part of her - the supernatural part - feels her body shutting down, so while Giselle isn’t awake to repress this side, it’s taking over, and healing her.”  
“So, she’s not dying?” Malia said cautiously.  
“She could if she doesn’t heal faster,” Dr. Deaton replied. He pulled his pen light out from his pocket and lifted Giselle’s eyelid, but what he saw had him stopping in his tracks.

“It’s m-my fault, dad,” Stiles said. “I shouldn’t have let her get into all of this,” he shook his head frantically as tears fell from his eyes. His worst nightmare had come true, his sister was fighting for her life all because he couldn’t protect her like he was supposed to. He cursed himself for thinking that it would be fun to have his sister tag along in all of the dangerous things he and the others ventured into.  
“Hey, listen to me,” the Sheriff grabbed his son’s face, forcing his head up. “You know, better than anyone, that there is no force on this Earth to stop your sister from helping you and her friends.”  
“I should’ve stopped her - I should’ve been the one to do it,” Giselle’s brother pointed at himself.  
“This is not your fault, you hear me? You couldn’t have fought off that thing even if you tried.” he sighed. “Giselle needs us right now, so we have to go back in there and do everything we can for her.” Stiles and the Sheriff gawked at the almost clear blue eyes that stared back at them through Giselle’s lifted eyelid.  
“Her eyes are brown,” her father looked to Dr. Deaton quizzically.  
“Her supernatural side is taking over,” Scott told him and Stiles.  
“She’s trying to heal herself,” Dr. Deaton informed them, letting Giselle’s eyelid relax now.  
“How do we get her to heal faster?”  
Dr. Deaton turned his back to the room of people as he rummaged through his drawers. “Giselle,” he called once he found what he was looking for. “Can you hear me?”  
“Yes,” Giselle replied, the rest of her comatose.  
“Giselle,” Dr. Deaton called again. “Can you sing for us?”  
Giselle’s mouth opened as she began to sing a slow melody of an enchanting song that no one in the room was familiar with. Dr. Deaton watched as everyone became enticed by her song. Their gazes were fixated on her in almost a trance-like way, letting him know that nothing could break their concentration from her. Their mouths were agape, each part of them falling subject to Giselle’s enticement. Dr. Deaton turned to and prompted her to stop and when he did, everyone blinked themselves out of their dazes.  
“So I’m guessing you know what she is,” Stiles said.  
Dr. Deaton nodded in response.  
“A siren,” the title was revealed by Giselle’s father.  
“That’s right,” Dr. Deaton confirmed, although his shock was more concealed than everyone else’s in the room.  
“How come you weren’t effected?” Stiles pointed at the veterinarian. “I’m her brother and it even got to me.”  
Dr. Deaton said nothing and removed the ear plugs from his ears. “Wax ear plugs,” he put them back into the drawer. “It’s the same thing Odysseus used to pass through the Siren Islands without falling under their control,” he explained. “Her powers are hardly romantic,” he added, going off of Stiles’s second point. “While they are typically used for seduction, their main purpose is to entice and daze you. With enough practice, they can be used to make anyone do anything.”  
“No way!” Liam grinned.  
“She’s still dying,” Malia reminded the doctor harshly.  
“How does she heal faster?” Scott asked.  
“Giselle,” the owner of the clinic looked to her. “You need to heal yourself,” he instructed. “You’ve already begun to do so, but if you do not heal yourself completely, you will die.” Everyone stared at the wound with bated breath, their anxiety spiking when they saw no change.  
“Come on, Benny,” Stiles quietly pleaded as he took hold of her cold hand. He froze when he watched the hole in her side contract slightly.  
“Giselle, you need to keep healing or else you are going to die, do you understand?” Dr. Deaton repeated. “You know how to heal, we’ve practiced this, remember?”  
The Sheriff took hold of his daughter’s hand and placed a kiss on the back of her hand and right before everyone’s eyes, Giselle’s wound was healed as if she had never been subject to the horrific accident. The Stilinski men and Scott leaned down to envelop Giselle in a hug while littering her cheeks and forehead with kisses. Soon after, when Giselle woke up, the rest of the pack joined in on the affectionate celebration.

“I don’t like when people break deals, Derek,” Braeden told him as they drove down the road. “Especially for teenage girls,” she scoffed. “I mean, seriously, Derek! Why Giselle?” Braeden’s ramblings had gone on for the past half hour. Derek didn’t make any attempts to stop her, because his mind was only focused on Giselle.  
“I thought you said you weren’t going to kill me,” Derek sighed, keeping his gaze fixated out the window. “But you’ve been talking me to death for the past 30 minutes.”  
“I’m not the only one thinking it,” Braeden ignored his comment. “Peter was thinking the same thing.”  
“How do you know about that?” Derek’s head whipped to hers.  
“He told me all about it. The day after Giselle saw me at your loft.”  
“I thought you were asleep,” he glared.  
“When someone’s yelling right outside your door, you’d notice too.” Derek rolled his eyes. “He told me how he told you to stop pursuing Giselle, because she was younger and too…human. And you listened.”  
Derek found his gaze outside the window again, mentally cursing himself for listening to his psychopathic uncle. He didn’t listen at first, but when he first fell for her, he never heard any reciprocation of those feelings. All he heard was a steady heartbeat, all he saw was her collectedness around him - not a single sign of love or even lust around him.  
“And even after all of that - the constant back and forth with Peter about it and being with me - it’s still her. Anytime we talked, she would always end up being the topic of conversation - you’d always bring her up somehow…” Braeden exhaled slowly. “Why her?”  
Derek smirked, realizing that it had always been Giselle, the way it had always been him for her. “It wasn’t obvious before,” Derek spoke, remembering the way her hair feathered and framed her face perfectly, seeing the small smile she always wore when they always pulled away from their hugs in his mind, almost hearing the flutter of her heartbeat when he kissed her forehead before he left for South America, the flutter of her heartbeat when he kissed her when they were possessed by the nogitsune, and the way it fluttered when he kissed her before she died. “But it is now,” his smirk turned into a small smile as he remembered the long nights they spent together, researching for the recent threats that hit Beacon Hills, how her head would tilt to the side as she read through an article, the night he spent sleeping beside her, because she wanted him too. Derek looked to the woman beside him, and although she was beautiful, she wasn’t Giselle. “She’s my mate.”


	42. Chapter 42

“I’m so glad you guys are okay,” I choked out as I held Scott and Kira’s hands as tightly as I could when I finally woke up in the animal clinic.  
“We’re glad you’re okay,” Kira smiled at me.  
The two had just finished telling me about Kate’s plans to make Scott a berserker and while she did, everyone was able to get Scott to remember his true self. Kira had been locked away and occasionally terrorized by Kate and the berserkers.  
“Where’s Derek?” I asked once I got a look at everyone in the room. Everyone looked to me, concerned. “Nothing hurts,” I reassured them. I looked down at my side to see nothing but my skin. _Maybe it’s on the other side_. But I didn’t find what I was looking for there either. “Did I…” I looked up at Deaton.  
“You did,” he confirmed with a smile.  
My dad helped me sit up but I was exhausted and let my head fall to his shoulder as Stiles’s hand replaced Kira’s. “Where’s Derek?” I asked again, but everyone stayed silent, but I caught the looks my brother and father were exchanging. “Where is he?”  
“He, uh,” Stiles glanced to our father. “He left, Benny.”  
“When’s he coming back?” I asked.  
“He didn’t say,” my dad shook his head as he rubbed my back.  
Realization hit me as I now understood what Stiles meant. “Oh,” I replied, my eyes dropping to my lap. I didn’t understand. Did he feel obligated to say the things I said because I was dying? Even if he didn’t feel the same way, I thought he would be here when I woke up, because we were still friends. Maybe I scared him away. “I’m pretty scary,” I finished out loud. My dad pressed a kiss to my head as Deaton asked me to recall the last memory I had before passing out. “I, um…I was with Derek. We were just talking and then I passed out,” I answered, not wanting to go into detail about what we said. “It was quiet, Braeden was keeping lookout and I was with Derek.”  
“Are you sure that’s all?” Liam asked.  
“Of course,” I nodded. “Did I do something?”  
“You healed yourself,” Scott answered. “You were responding to everything Deaton was saying.”  
“You sang,” Kira marvelled.  
“I sang?”  
“Your eyes were blue,” Malia added.  
“Like yours?” I referred to her ice blue eyes that only came out when she shifted.  
“Lighter.”  
“What am I?” I said to Deaton.   
“A siren,” he replied with a knowing smile. “Your voice can lure people to do whatever you ask of them.”  
“The voice,” I smirked. “That’s why she called me that.”  
“Who?” Stiles spoke up.   
“The Calavera woman. She saw my eyes change that day we were looking for Derek and Peter when she separated Scott, Lydia, and I from you guys.”  
“So she knew?” Scott’s eyebrows furrowed.  
“She was the only one who knew right off the bat,” I smirked. “How did this happen? I’ve been human my whole life and I don’t remember being turned by a siren.”  
“While I haven’t heard of a way for sirens to turn people, you must have been born this way,” the veterinarian turned his head towards my father and I followed his lead. My dad glanced between the two of us before nodding.  
“How did I heal myself from…” my gaze fell to my hip again. “…that?”  
“Your siren side knew how to heal it, your human side is used to subconsciously repressing that and since your human self was…well, dead, your siren side healed you.”   
“I guess that kind of explains why I don’t get sick,” I smirked.  
“And why your bruises don’t last as long,” dad added.  
“It explains a lot of things,” Scott mused. “Can her singing effect people even if she wasn’t aware of it?” he asked his boss.  
“On a much smaller scale,” he answered.  
“Stiles,” Scott turned to my brother. “Seventh grade.”  
“What about it?” he replied.  
“That’s when Matt became obsessed with Giselle,” my best friend looked to me. “When did it begin? Around what time in seventh grade?”  
“Um…” I took a moment to think. “It was in the middle of the school year.”  
“Before or after the talent show?”  
“After, I think,” I answered.  
“You sang at the talent show,” Stiles realized.   
“You think it-“  
“It had to have been what started his obsession!”  
“Hold on,” my dad held up a hand. “Why would it effect Matt that way and not anyone else in that auditorium?”  
“There must have been some prior attraction,” Deaton supplied.  
“That’s why you were on the deadpool,” Malia pieced together.  
“And why the oni marked you - not because you weren’t possessed, but because you’re supernatural,” Kira added.  
“And why didn’t die when Jennifer tried to kill you,” Stiles said.  
“That was different,” I shook my head. “Scott was taking my pain.”  
“It doesn’t heal though,” Scott refuted.  
“That’s why…” I trailed off.

_I opened my closet in search of an extra blanket as I sang along softly to the song playing from my laptop. It was a habit I had a hard time pushing down but it calmed the last few bits of fear still present.  
“Can you stop that?” Derek spoke. I turned to see him poking his head through the window. “It’s distracting.”  
“You heard that?” I raised my brows before it dawned on me. “Right,” I turned to my closet again. “Super hearing.”_

“Why what?” Stiles prompted.  
“Nothing,” I shook my head. “So I can heal myself,” I changed the topic. “What else? Super strength?” I asked hopefully.  
“Yes,” Deaton confirmed. “But less than Scott and Malia’s. Most of your power lies in your voice.”  
I nodded when I realized how prominent my exhaustion was. “C-can I go home?”  
“Of course, sweetheart,” my dad decided.  
“You need the rest after healing yourself from an injury as serious as that,” Deaton told me and he was right. Lifting my legs off of the table was enough to make my head spin. My dad picked me up and off of the table and into his arms where I fell asleep.

I heard a clock ticking in the quiet room I woke up in. When I opened my eyes, I realized I was in my room and in my bed. A place I didn’t think I’d ever be in again in the house that held the family I never thought I’d see again. With a sigh, I let my heavy eyes shut again. It felt as though I hadn’t slept for very long, but by the lack of sunlight scattered across my room, I knew I had to have been asleep for majority of the day.  
“You’re awake,” I heard his voice say.  
I sprung up in my bed and found Derek looking back at me as he sat next to my bed. “Derek,” I whispered. I didn’t know how to feel. Angry that he left? Happy that he came back for me?  
Derek’s hand reached out to cup my face and I let him. My head rested in his soft palm and my eyes shut to absorb the feeling of it moulding to fit my cheek as his fingertips grazed the skin behind my ear. “Where did you go?” I asked softly but my furrowed brows let him know that his disappearance wasn’t appreciated.  
“Away,” he answered as I put my hand against his.  
“That’s vague,” I smirked.  
I heard his deep chuckle which turned my smirk into a smile. “I’m here now,” he said softly.  
Even though that answer wasn’t enough for me, I found myself changing the topic, “I’m a siren.”  
“I knew you were something. That night you got attacked and the paralysis wore off quicker for you. I knew.”  
“My dad knows something too,” I added. “I don’t know what.”  
“Why don’t you ask him?”  
I opened my eyes and looked at him through my eyelashes. “I was going to, but then you showed up,” I teased.  
Derek smiled at me, letting his thumb swipe back and forth across my cheek. “Sorry.”  
“Don’t be,” I shook my head, my tone turning serious. “Listen, what I said…before I-“  
“I meant everything,” his eyes captured mine effortlessly.  
I let out a sigh of relief, “Me too.” My heart skipped a beat and my stomach somersaulted.  
Derek moved from the chair in front of my bed to sitting next to me. “I want to be with you.”  
“I’ve wanted to be with you for so long, Derek,” I sighed as my eyes were transfixed on his lips. I felt his hand softly guiding my head forward as he leaned in to meet me in the middle. Then, we collided and this kiss was even better than the last one. My insides shook at the intensity of the kiss. His facial hair rubbed and poked against the perimeter of my lips, but I didn’t care. I was kissing Derek - right, this time. Not while we were possessed and not while I was dying. And nothing could ruin this. I tugged on the collar of Derek’s shirt, silently asking him to come closer to me.  
He lay me down before pulling away and propping himself up on his fist as he lay on his side next to me. “Sleep,” he said.  
“I don’t want to,” I sighed, even though I was still exhausted. “I want to lay here with you - talk to you.”  
“We can do that after you get stronger.”  
“Okay,” I mumbled as I made myself comfortable against Derek’s body as sleeping like this was foreign to me.  
“Goodnight Giselle,” he wished in his softest voice. I hummed a goodnight in response when I felt myself spiralling into sleep.


	43. Chapter 43

When I woke up, Derek wasn’t there. He never was because it was all a dream. None of it happened and all it left me with was a deeper pain in my chest a lot of questions. Mainly vibes surrounding Derek’s whereabouts and my dad. I hadn’t gotten anything out of my father or brother about where Derek went and who he even went with.  
And my dad - did he know I would be born this way? He couldn’t have - he didn't even know about the supernatural until last year. I sat up in bed and looked at my alarm clock. 6:43PM. I was done resting, I needed answers. “Mischief,” I called as I knocked on his door.  
“Come in,” Stiles said. I opened the door wider and I found Stiles immediately on the other side. “How are you feeling?” he asked as he helped me to his bed.  
“I’m okay,” I nodded. “Are you?”  
Stiles plopped into the computer chair that was right in front of me. “Aside from almost losing my sister and my best friend, I’m all right.”  
“I’m sorry,” I shook my head. “I should’ve been more careful.”  
“It’s not your fault,” he promised me.  
“It’s not yours either,” I pointed out, knowing how Stiles likes to take the blame for everything that happens to me.  
“I know,” he nodded, rubbing the back of his neck.  
“We’re all okay,” I reminded him. “And I’ll be more careful.” When Stiles silently nodded, I took the chance to ask him what had been on my mind. “Can I ask you something?”  
“Go for it.”  
“Where did Derek go?” The desperation in my voice for the man that had left so easily made me ashamed and searching for something to help me regain a feeling of superiority.  
Stiles let out a sigh as he leaned his forearms against his knees. “He had to go.”  
“Where?” I stressed.  
“To hunt the Desert Wolf, with Braeden.”  
I felt like I had been punched in the gut. “Who’s the Desert Wolf?” I tried to ignore the nauseous feeling in the pit of my stomach.  
“She’s Malia’s mom - her real mom. Braeden’s had some fascination with hunting her and Derek made a deal with her. She helps find Kate, he helps find the Desert Wolf.” The pain in my chest eased only slightly. “He said she was going to kill him for breaking the deal.”  
“And he’s going to spend the next few months with her?” I quirked a brow.  
“Considering she has the power to make not only him but every single one of us drop dead like flies, yeah.”  
“I can’t believe he went with her,” I breathed a laugh.  
“He did it for you,” Stiles defended Derek. “I don’t like that he left - in face I hate it, but he did it for you.”  
“How does him leaving with another woman after confessing how we feel about each other while I was dying beneficial to me?”  
“Probably because he knows that he can still come back to you once they find the Desert Wolf, something he can’t do if he’s dead.” I hated how frustrating all of this was. It seemed like whenever I got close to having him, we were thrown miles away from each other again. “He really didn’t want to leave,” Stiles assured me. “I could tell just by the look on his face. He was between a rock and a hard place.”  
I sighed in defeat, knowing Stiles had to be right. “I know.”  
“He told us he was coming back for you.” I only nodded again, not knowing how to feel. I understood that Derek was threatened into helping Braeden and I believed Stiles when he told me that Derek didn’t want to go, but I couldn’t help but feel defeated as I realized we were going around the carousel that we’ve been on for years. “I’m sorry, Benny,” Stiles put his hand on my knee.  
“No need,” I sent him a small smile before standing up. “I just needed to know.”  
Stiles stood up as well before pulling me into a tight hug which I returned and relaxed in his arms. “I’m so glad you’re alive, Giselle.”  
“Me too, Mischief,” I smiled before pulling away and heading back to my room.

I found myself sitting on the edge of my bed in a daze. I silently cursed my brain for conjuring up that dream. It only made me miss and hate Derek even more. I knew the latter emotion was impulsive and invalid, but it was still present. I couldn’t help but worry that he would develop deeper feelings for Braeden and forget about me. It was like having a word on the tip of your tongue and just as you’re about to get it out, someone cuts you off, and you forget what the word was all over again. For years, that word has been Derek. It’s always been Derek.  
I heard my phone beep as it sat on my dresser. I looked over my shoulder and noticed multiple notifications flooding the screen. There were messages from everyone - even Liam’s friend Mason - congratulating me on my new supernatural abilities and expressing how glad they were that I was alive.  
I soon found voice messages from Derek.  
“I understand if you don’t want to talk to me right now,” he began. “But I need to tell you everything - why I’m gone, where I’m going, and things I can’t adequately express over a text message, even though a phone call or voice message doesn’t do it justice either. Please call me back when you wake up.”  
I discovered that there were four other voice messages to listen to. The first couple told me what Stiles had explained, adding in that he would in South America since that’s where the Desert Wolf was last seen and a heartfelt apology. His voice messages onward told me things that I only wanted to ever hear from him.   
“Scott told me everything. Everything about you healing yourself, you being a siren. I knew there was something about you,” he marvelled, the smile evident in his voice. “That night I saved you - you weren’t paralyzed for as long as you should’ve been.” I had to pinch myself before I began to listen to the next voice message to ensure I wasn’t dreaming again.  
“I need you to know that me leaving - leaving with Braeden - doesn’t change things. Every single thing I said to you, I meant,” he promised. “It’s always been you, Giselle. The way it’s been me for you. I can’t wait to come back to you. When I come back, we’re doing everything right. The way we should’ve done them in the beginning.”  
“I’m coming back for you, Giselle,” Derek promised again in his final voice message. “I’m not losing you, not this time. I love you, Giselle. Nothing is going to change that because there’s nothing more that I want than to be there when you wake up and I hope you can forgive me. I hope you understand why I’m not there right now, holding you, and telling you all of this in person. Don’t forget that I love you.”  
My fingers couldn’t keep up as I dialled Derek’s number back eagerly. When I got his voicemail, I realized how unprepared I was. I said all I could think of to say to Derek. “I love you, Derek,” I began as I lay back on my bed. “I know - I know why you left and I forgive you,” I assured him. “I’ll be here. I’ll be waiting for you.” My heart was bursting with emotion that I couldn’t accurately express with words. “I’ve waited for you for this long, what’s a few months?” I chuckled. “It’ll make our reunion so much better. Just catch that thing so you can come back as soon as possible,” I smirked. “I love you and I’m here waiting for you,” I repeated before ending the voicemail.  
Even though I had so much to say and so many feelings to express, I felt like my voicemail was nothing in comparison to even one of the ones he sent me, so I sent more. Many more. Until I maxed out all of my emotions for the night. While I was satisfied with how things turned out with Derek, I found myself still reeling over my father. I had to know what he knew. Did he know I was going to become a siren? If he did, how did he come to know what he knew? I knew this wouldn’t be an easy conversation for us to have, but the most important ones never are.  
My bare feet padded down the stairs and to the living room where I found my father rummaging through files from the station that were now scattered over our coffee table. It wasn’t a foreign sight, but it only made me quickly learn that being Sheriff was never a job that could be left at the station.  
I headed over to the couch and sat next to him, finally grabbing his attention. He wrapped his arm around me and pulled me close to press a kiss to my head. “There you are,” he smiled at me. “I was starting to think you’d be asleep for the entire day,” he chuckled.  
“Sounds tempting,” I smirked. “What’s all this?” I nodded at the table.  
“A homicide,” he breathed, tossing some papers onto the table. “But it’s not important,” he looked to me. “How’s my little girl?”  
“I’m okay and not as little as you think she is.”  
“You’re right,” he nodded.  
“How did you know?” I got straight to the point. “About me?”  
I heard dad sigh. “It’s been a family legend. At first I thought it was just a myth - something to tell the children of the family,” he shook his head. “Then you came along. You had a charm that few could resist and when you started singing, those few couldn’t resist either.”  
“So you knew I’d be…this?”  
“Not at first, no.”  
“Did mom know?”  
“No. She knew the story, but didn’t believe it. I heard you sing and saw how people reacted and it was a thought in the back of my head. And then you and Stiles told me about werewolves, kanimas, and hunters. And it all got real. Really real.” I chuckled. “I knew it was only a matter of time. I tried to ignore it, but deep down I knew.”  
“So what was it?” I asked and got a hum in response. “What was the story?”  
“It was about a man named Emilio and your very great grandmother, Meara Stilinski. Another siren.”


	44. Chapter 44

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this chapter is a bit different - I swear, if you're here to read Only Forever you are in the right place! And if you're not here to read Only Forever, I'm afraid you're in the wrong place, but I came up with a new take on this chapter and i really hope that you guys enjoy what I've come up with for this chapter.
> 
> I'd also like to really thank everybody for all their support on this story, it really means so much to me and it makes me happy to see that everyone likes what I'm writing.
> 
> I hope you guys enjoy and I'll see you in the next chapter!

The moon was high in the sky on that warm summer night, a temperature not common for Scotland. The sea gave off a distinct breeze - the perfect climate for falling in love. Landing upon a boulder, Meara scoped out the waters that night. It had been an empty few nights lately, as the body of water ran dry of sailors. It had gotten lonely and any ripple that disrupted the sea’s calm nature sent mara’s head snapping in that direction only to be disappointed at the empty view before her.  
Emilio pulled his boat onto the water before climbing in and casting away. It was a later time than most would typically set sail onto the sea, but Emilio preferred it. The quiet night gave him some time alone with his thoughts. He had no wife or children to advise him to stay home and he firmly believed that if something happened to him while he was out, then it was meant to be and nothing could change that. The salty water ebbed and flowed upon the intrusion of his boat and the further he went, the more disruption he caused the peaceful sea.  
After squandering the sea for a few minutes and coming up with nothing, Meara’s eyes fell upon a small boat that had a man laying in it, stargazing. She stretched her wings and let herself glide over to the boat, landing in the boat, in front of the man. Meara let herself shift back to human before the man glanced to her. She tried to hide her disappointment when her most dashing victim had only given her a glance.  
“Beautiful,” his soft voice complimented. “Aren’t they?”  
Meara only took a second to look up to the stars, the same amount of time it took the man to regard her. “Yes,” she half-heartedly agreed. “But why compliment them when you have a beautiful woman right here to compliment?”  
“You don’t seem to need them,” the man looked over at her.  
“Why do you say this”  
“A woman like you has no problem corralling men and I’m sure they shower you with compliments.”  
“A woman like me?”  
“A siren,” he whispered, knowingly.  
Meara was perplexed as to why he wasn’t getting as far away from her as possible. “Are you not in fear for your life?”  
The man shook his head as he sat up. “No,” he answered. “Whatever’s meant to happen, will happen,” he took hold of his oars.  
“Don’t go,” Meara reached out and placed her hand on his. “I didn’t even learn your name.”  
“Emilio,” the man provided. “Now, I must get going.” Meara allowed herself to shift before hovering over his boat with the use of her wings. Emilio found his way away from the siren. While this would hinder most from returning to the sea at nightfall, it didn’t have any effect on Emilio. These legends were the reason why most didn’t prowl the seas this late at night. With one final glance at the stars and moon, he took off in a saunter away from the water’s shore.

Two more nightfalls had passed before Meara last saw Emilio and he had left an impression on the seducer. She found herself not wanting to seduce him to his death, which was not common for her. Apprehensively, she attributed her new attitude to love. A foreign concept to the woman who only knew ephemeral infatuation. As Meara studied the marvellous contrast of the white stars against the ebony sky, she found herself thinking, “oh, what a cruel irony it is to be the one falling in love after a momentary interaction.”  
Ripples in the water sent Meara’s heart into a frenzy and she saw the familiar boat. Emilio’s back was turned to her as he stopped rowing. Surely, he’d come back to see her! Why else would he return, knowing there was a siren who didn’t get to finish the job last time? She let her wings guide her to Emilio’s boat once again. “You came back,” she said softly as she landed on his boat.  
“This is the only place where the stars shine their brightest,” he replied absentmindedly, as his gaze transfixed on the stars above them, and hers on him.  
“That can’t be the only reason you came back,” her voice was laced with a hopeful tone.  
“Why not?”  
“You know what you found last time you were in these waters.”  
“You.”  
“Yes.”  
“You think I’ve come back for you?” Emilio’s head turned to her. “For a siren?”  
“You’re not?” Meara’s face fell along with her heart.  
Emilio turned towards Meara and cupped her cheek, “You’re very beautiful,” he admitted, inspecting every detail of her face that he could make out in the dark night. “But how am I meant to trust you?”  
“Of course you can!” she promised. “I’ve never been this close to a man without ending his life. I’m surprised I’m not doing it now,” she breathed a laugh.  
“That’s it,” he replied. “How long can I survive at this proximity before your nature overpowers you?”  
“I could never-“ she cut herself off when Emilio’s hand left her face.  
“You’ve given into it more times than you can count,” he took hold of his oars. “But it isn’t your fault, it’s in your nature.” Meara stayed on the boat still. “I must go.”  
Without another word, Meara took flight above the boat and watched Emilio leave once again.

Across the rocky land, Meara had been in search of a particular woman who went by the name Illayah. Among all the sirens on the island, she was one of the only ones who could control her siren abilities. In the deep and dark shadows, Illayah was seen, her long dark hair cascaded down her back as she let her blue eyes gaze upon the others who waited with bated breath for a boat of sailors to pass by the waters of the Siren Islands. Illayah’s disinterest added to her poise that seemed to offend a majority of the sirens on the island. Meara, for one, was intimidated by Illayah’s conquering of the seemingly impossible.  
“Illayah,” Meara called softly.  
The woman turned, her porcelain skin radiated in the shadows, her smile was enough to make anyone fall in love as her eyes held a purity that other sirens could never possess. She was decades old, but her features never dared to tell strangers that secret.  
“Meara,” Illayah let her smile stretch across her face. “How are you?”  
“Fine,” she took a seat next to the woman. “I need your help. I need you to teach me what your ancestors taught your family - what your family taught you.”  
“Control.” Meara nodded in confirmation. “May I ask why?”  
“I’ve fallen in love,” she answered, almost ashamed.  
“That’s not typical for our kind.”  
“I’m aware of this,” Meara sighed. “He doesn’t trust me. He knows of me. Of our kind. He thinks I’m going to kill him.”  
“Do you think you will kill him?”  
Meara paused to reflect on the question. “Maybe I will,” she confessed. “But I don’t want to,” she added furiously.  
“So when I teach you, what happens after?”  
“I find him and tell him that I’ve learned how to control myself.”  
“It will not happen soon, you do understand that?”  
“Of course, but I am willing to learn for Emilio.”  
“I know. This will bring you two together, I promise.”

In the months that Illayah had used to train Meara, she had successfully taught her control. Emilio had become her anchor, the thing to ground her when she felt like she was losing control. She hadn’t seen him since the night that inspired her to seek out Illayah’s help. She spent long nights looking up at the sky, it gave her comfort because she knew that Emilio was looking at the same ones.   
Meara’s anticipation was almost unbearable. She was finally perched onto the boulder that she was on when she first saw Emilio. She had sat impatiently, constantly flying around the area to try and see any signs of his boat. When she did, Meara couldn’t stop herself from flying over to it. However she stopped short when she found Emilio wasn’t alone.  
She landed upon another rock as she watched the boat pass by with Emilio and another woman in it. Envy filled Meara as she saw the way her beautiful bright smile contrasted against her ebony skin, like the stars did in the night sky. When Meara landed on the bow of the boat, their laughter came to a stop as the woman screamed at the sight of her and her name left Emilio’s lips in astonishment. “You know this-this-”  
“Yes,” Emilio cut off the woman. “Meara.” Her name never sounded better than when it passed through his lips. “This is Allena,” he introduced the woman next to him. “My wife.”  
“Your wife,” Meara repeated. “The woman you love.”  
“Yes,” Emilio confirmed with a smile.  
All of the desires that Meara had been resisting this whole time were beginning to surface and she didn’t know if she could contain them. She didn’t know if she wanted to. “You have forgotten about me.” Emilio stayed silent, letting the confusion on his face show. “You’ve found another woman while I couldn’t dare to look at another man.”  
“Meara, I’m afraid I don’t understand.” The colour of Meara’s eyes changed as her rows of teeth became sharp and dangerous. Emilio’s fear of dying had accelerated when he met Allena because the thought of leaving behind the woman he loved was enough for him to abandon his carefree attitude. “Meara, what are you doing!?” he cried.  
Instead of responding with words, Meara used her teeth and hands to tear apart the couple, leaving behind their bodies that were beyond recognizable.  
“Illayah!” Meara’s voice demanded on the Siren Island as her feet padded against the rocky texture below her only moments after murdering the man she loved and his lover. Their blood was still prominent on her fingertips and her anger was prominent along her fact.  
Illayah emerged from her hiding spot. “Meara,” she smiled. “How did it go?”  
“He’s with another.”  
Illayah’s face fell. “I’m sorry,” she approached the girl.  
“You promised that he and I would be together.”  
“I know what I said,” she replied calmly. “I shouldn’t have promised something I couldn’t control, but you have learned something valuable.”  
“Do you think you’re above the rest of us, Illayah? That you don’t have to pay for your mistakes?”  
“I do not.”  
“You act like you are. When you act like you are, you begin to make promises you can’t keep,” Meara’s eyes shifted. Illayah cried out for Meara to control herself, but Meara let all of the desires unleash on Illayah just as she let them unleash on Emilio and Allena. In front of all the sirens who remained on the island, Meara tore apart the other siren in her rage. All of the witnesses fled the moment Meara spun around, in search of her next victim.


	45. Chapter 45

“So what happened to Meara?” I asked my dad when he finished the story.  
“After running loose on the town and murdering anyone in sight, she became the most feared siren,” dad explained. “She had a family many years later before she felt guilt for what she did. She asked the Gods to punish her for what she did to Emilio, Allena, and Illayah in particular. They sent her to an island all on her own where she eventually died.”  
“It sounds like a rogue fairytale,” I chuckled nervously.  
“That’s why I never told you guys about it.”  
“Is anyone else…like me?”  
“Not that I know of,” dad answered after a moment of thought. “I think it only happens every few generations.”  
“I think it was a coming of age thing, you know? I had to grow into it.”  
“Why do you think that?”  
“When I first found out about all of this, I was able to touch mountain ash,” I began. “But that night at Scott’s house when we were holding off the Oni, I couldn’t pass the mountain ash barrier.”  
“Maybe you’ll become stronger as time passes.”  
“Maybe I’ll grow wings and sharp teeth,” I added humourlessly.  
“Giselle, I didn’t mean to scare you with this.”  
“You didn’t,” I stood up, ready to leave before he tried to console me. “Thank you for telling me. I really appreciate it.” My dad sent my an uncertain smile before I headed up to my bedroom.   
I shut my door before I took a seat in front of my laptop. It dawned on me how little I knew about sirens, I knew that they would sing to lure men in, but that was really it. If I was a siren, then I needed to learn about myself as much as I could. Sirens I typed into the search bar. I found a wikipedia page telling me all about them. There were overtones of violence that came with the powers of a siren. I found multiple articles outlining how sirens would lure sailors in with their voices before killing them. There were discrepancies on how sirens looked. Some people said they looked like mermaids, but others said they had the body and wings of a bird with the head of a beautiful woman. Regardless of which illustration you chose to follow, they all had the same rows of sharp teeth. Like Meara.  
Article after article, the only thing I found myself reading about was the vicious nature of sirens. When it all got too much, I slammed my laptop shut before putting my head in my hands as I tried to force back my tears of fear. I didn’t want to kill anyone - this couldn’t be inevitable. Maybe I could learn - the way Illayah taught Meara. If Scott, Derek, Malia, Liam, and all the other werewolves I know could control their vicious natures, why couldn’t I? What makes my powers so different from theirs? There was only one person I could go to who could help me control my powers. Deaton.

A week after I asked Deaton for help, he introduced me to Corraelin, another siren who had been in living in seclusion somewhere in Beacon Hills. Scott decided that it was best if I focused on getting my powers under control before trying to help them with the new threats of Beacon Hills. While I didn’t love the decision, I knew it was for the best and I decided this new free time would allow me to focus more on school and my volunteering at the hospital.  
“I don’t want to kill anyone,” I told Corraelin in the animal clinic that afternoon.  
“And you won’t have to,” her full lips pulled back into a brilliant smile. “With enough power and control, you’ll be able to determine how far you want people to go.”  
“What do I sing?”  
“You let the siren side take over. It sort of just, happens,” she smirked. The excitement in her solid, brown eyes told me that she wanted to start training me as much as I wanted to learn how to control my powers.  
“Okay,” I let out a sigh.  
“It’s not going to be easy at first,” she reminded me gently and I nodded, never expecting it to be easy. “I believe in you,” Corraelin placed her gentle, ebony hand on my arm. “Deaton believes in you,” she looked over her shoulder at the man. “And all of your friends believe in you.”

Weeks had passed as I learned how to control my shift and heal like Scott, Malia, Liam, and Kira do. I could now switch my eyes and I had even sung my first siren song. Despite what I read online, I would not become a sharp-toothed bird. It has been centuries since sirens have been able to fully shift. While it wasn’t for certain, Deaton told me that the Gods had put something in the waters of the Siren Islands so when sirens entered it, they were no longer to fully shift. They did this because they began to realize the true power of these sirens.  
I had been filling in Stiles, Scott, and Derek about how my training with Deaton and Corraelin were going. Derek hadn’t been communicating with me as frequently as he did when he first left and I would only hear from him a couple of times during the week, but I understood why. Hunting the Desert Wolf had to have been getting more tedious which probably meant that they were close to catching her which also meant that Derek would be coming home soon.  
I had started training with Scott at Argent’s warehouse, trying to get my fighting skills up to par. During these training sessions, he would fill me in about things that were going on in the pack and the latest threat in Beacon Hills. It gave me a sense of inclusion and I think it helped Scott sort the problems when he talked about them out loud.  
“They’re called the dread doctors,” a sweaty Scott said as he deflected my punch. “They make these fake supernatural creatures out of people. They’re called chimeras.”  
“What do you mean fake?” I asked as I ducked, dodging his hit.  
“Tracy - the girl at school - she was turned into a werewolf with a kanima’s tail.”  
“How is that possible?” my brows furrowed and I winced when Scott landed a hit on my shoulder.  
“We don’t know how they’re doing it yet, but we have to stop it.”  
“Theo’s in town, isn’t he?” I said. Theo was one of our friends from elementary school who ended up moving before we all transferred to middle school. He had come back to Beacon Hills a few days ago and revealed that he was a werewolf like Scott was.  
“He’s one of them,” he rolled his eyes. “A chimera. He has a whole pack of them.”  
“And I’m guessing that they don’t want to co-exist peacefully?”  
“Not exactly.”  
“What about the missing bodies from the hospital? Is that them too?” The past month, bodies that went to the morgue one day were gone the next. The police had been called to investigate this, but my father, Melissa, and I concluded that this had to be supernatural or a necrophiliac.  
“It’s Parrish. He’s not doing it intentionally though.”  
“Does this have to do with what he is?”  
“He’s a hellhound,” Scott told me when we finally stopped fighting. “He’s taking the bodies and he doesn’t even know it.”  
“Where is he taking them?”  
“No one knows, but every time someone tries to stop him he fights back.” I sat down on the floor, my muscles throbbing as I took a sip of my water. “It’s like his human side is completely submerged by his hellhound side when he shifts,” Scott sat down next to me. “How’s your training with Deaton going?” he changed the subject.  
“It’s going well,” I smiled, proud of myself for the progress I’ve made. “I’ve picked up a lot this summer.”  
“What have you learned?”  
“I know how to shift, sing, and heal. I’m even starting to learn how to enchant someone just by calling their name.”  
“It looks like you won’t be out of commission for much longer,” Scott nudged my shoulder, sending me a grin.

School had started as we were well into the first week of September. I hadn’t heard from Derek for the past month, no matter how many voicemails I left him, he just wasn't responding even though he promised to talk to me at least once a week. The crippling realization that he had decided to be with Braeden instead of me had settled in horribly. It was the only explanation that I was willing to accept. The idea that he died at the hands of the Desert Wolf was not something I was ready to believe.  
This was my senior year and I had to be focused on my studies so I could get into a good university. The medical programs were one of the most competitive ones - especially at UC Davis. Scott and I were both planning to go there and we made a deal to work hard in AP Biology together. A few nights before the first day, Scott had come over so we could go through the textbook and learn the material so we would be prepared for one of the hardest classes at Beacon Hills.

_I paced around my bedroom as I called Derek for the third time this week with no response.  
“You know,” I began when I got his voicemail for the millionth time that month. “If you didn’t want to be with me then you should’ve told me, instead of lying to me,” I rubbed my forehead. “I thought you’d have a little more respect for me than to lead me on and lie. I mean,” I breathed a laugh. “How dumb was I to think that you didn’t want to go with Braeden? I can’t believe you fooled everyone into thinking that you didn't want to leave and that you didn’t have a choice.” I stopped packing in front of my bed. “Screw you, Derek Hale,” I spat before hanging up and throwing my phone onto my bed.  
I let out a sigh, feeling utterly exhausted. I rubbed my face with my hands as I willed myself not to cry, knowing that Scott would be here any minute. A rap on my door made me look over to it. Scott stood in the open doorway with his biology textbook in hand wearing a sheepish smile.  
“Please don’t tell me you heard that pathetic voicemail,” I grimaced as I sat down on my bed.  
“Just a bit,” he replied as he closed the door behind him.  
“I should be worrying about AP Biology, not an AP douchebag,” I rolled my eyes.  
Scott chuckled as he took a seat next to me. “I’m sorry Giselle,” he sighed as he rubbed my back.  
“It’s out of our control now,” I decided before grabbing my book off of my desk. I didn’t want to bring Scott’s mood down with me especially when we had more important things to focus on. “Let’s get started because we’ve got a lot of ground to cover.”_

“Hey Giselle,” Scott came up to me at my locker that morning. He grasped onto the straps of his backpack that wrapped around his shoulders, a nervous habit he had picked up. “I need you to talk to Stiles for me.”  
“What about?” I turned to my best friend.  
“We had a bit of a fight last night,” he began, staring at the floor now. “I think he’s stressed about everything going on with Theo and you.”  
“Me?” my brows pulled together as I stopped what I was doing. Were my new powers worrying him or bothering him in some way?  
“He brought up the whole thing between you and Derek - he didn’t go into detail, but he mentioned you two.”  
Why would what’s going on with Derek and I be effecting Stiles? “All right,” I sighed and shut my locker. “I guess I will.”  
“I think there may be something else that he’s not telling us,” Scott added as we walked down the hall.  
“I’ll get it out of him,” I promised.

After my shift at the hospital, I drove my way home, not yet getting tired of the feeling of driving in my own car. It was something else I worked towards getting during summer. Aside from being at the hospital and training, I had picked up as many shifts as I could at the new summer job I got. While it wasn’t enough to get a used car, my dad and Stiles pitched in to help me get a car as an early birthday present.  
When I got into the house, I remembered what Scott told me about Stiles and I realized that I hadn’t seen him all day. I headed upstairs just in time to hear him throw something and let out a cry of frustration. I jogged over and opened his door slowly. Stiles turned to me, panting before trying to relax at the sight of me. “Hey,” I began cautiously as I shut the door behind me. “What’s wrong?”  
“Nothing,” he shook his head as he sat down on his computer chair.  
“You can’t lie to me, Mischief,” I set my bag down.  
“What makes you think I’m lying?” he looked up at me.  
“Twin telepathy,” I tapped the side of my head with a smirk. “And Scott told me something was up,” I sat down. “So what is it?”  
“It was just about Theo,” he ran a hand through his hair in frustration. “I just hate that Scott trusts people so easily,” he sat back. “That’s all.”  
“Scott said you brought up something about Derek and I. Want to tell me what that was about?” Stiles stayed silent. “Whatever is happening between him and I shouldn’t stress you out. It’s part of my life. It’s not your problem and I don’t want you dealing with that.”  
“Giselle,” Stiles’s eyes narrowed. “He had you - my sister - die in his arms while you confessed your love to him. Then he left with another woman and proceeded to ignore your calls.”  
I swallowed the lump in my throat, hating to hear that I let that all happen. “Stiles-“  
“Don’t think I don’t hear you crying in your room some nights, Giselle,” he cut me off sharply. “And don’t think that it doesn’t bother me either.” The both of us sat silently, not knowing what else to say. Hearing all of the things that happened out loud made me feel ashamed and foolish. I couldn’t believe that I let all of that happen but I trusted him. Even if he didn’t feel the same way I would’ve that he respected me enough to tell me the truth, no matter if I was dying or not. “I did something,” Stiles whispered grimly. “Donovan.” The boy who had been arrested for petty theft that resulted in him being sent to prison. He was a minor that my father had dealt with for a big part of his career. He had now turned 18 which meant that he could be sent to jail for his crimes. “I killed him,” he whispered, lowering his head.  
My head slowly turned to Stiles whose head was lowered so much that I could barely see his face. “What?” I moved closer to him, not wanting to believe what I just heard. “What did you say?”  
“I killed him, Giselle!” he sprung up from his seat in frustration and caused me to jump back. “I-I-“ he cut himself off with a shaky sigh. “I didn’t mean to and it-it was in self-defence, I swear,” he began to pant as his eyes filled with tears.  
“Okay, okay,” I stood up and placed my hands on his shoulders but he winced in pain, so I took my hand off of him. “Tell me what happened.”  
Stiles sat down and I followed his lead. “S-so I was in the school’s parking lot a few nights ago. The jeep broke down again and-and I was fixing it. Then, Donovan - he came up behind me. He grabbed onto my shoulder and-and he-he had like-a mouth on his hand with all these teeth. It bit me,” he lowered his shirt to show me the gauze that was on his shoulder and there was blood that was making its way through. “I-I ran into the school and we g-got to the library and I was trying to get away. He almost got me b-but I grabbed onto the key of the support beam - the one in the library and it-it f-fell and it…” he trailed off. “I was just trying to create a diversion so-so I could get out.”  
“What happened, Stiles?” I got him back on track. “What happened to Donovan?”  
“One of the beams fell down and-and it…it went straight through him.” I stayed quiet, trying to process all of this. “When I went back to the library after I let the phone go through to the police, everything was gone, Giselle,” he looked up at me. “It was all cleaned up. Like nothing even happened.”  
“It had to be the dread doctors,” I concluded.  
“You can’t tell dad or Scott - they don’t know, okay? They don’t know anything.”  
“Stiles, they’ll understand if you tell them what you told me. Your shoulder is proof!” I pointed to it.  
“No,” he replied instantaneously. “Scott - he’s totally against killing people. And dad-“  
“He’s going to defend you, Stiles.”  
“What kind of position is this going to put him in?” he questioned me. “I’ve made him lose his job once and I might make him do it again when he won’t arrest his own son for killing someone.”  
“We’re going to work it out,” I promised, even though I didn’t even know where to start with that plan. “We always do.”

A few weeks later, Stiles told me that he had told Scott about what he did and the two of them had gotten into a fight about it. While Scott was adamant on not killing anyone and saving everyone, I still couldn’t understand how he couldn't see Stiles’s side of things. He couldn’t do the things we did, so he couldn’t defend himself against Donovan. Regardless, killing Donovan was never Stiles’s intention. Stiles still hadn’t told dad what happened and I felt utterly hopeless with this on top of the fact that everyone was feeling increasingly defeated with the dread doctors and constantly coming up at dead ends with how to stop them.  
I was still getting my powers under control but I still felt useless. In my moment of weakness, I broke and found myself dialling Derek’s number. I didn’t even know what to say if he answered or when I got his voicemail. However, I got none of that. I got an automated message telling me that the number had been disconnected and was no longer in service. I groaned out in frustration as I sent my phone straight down to my bed. I didn’t know what it meant. Did it mean that Derek was dead? Did it mean that he was with Braeden now? I didn’t know where to go from this.  
Despite the fact that the pack was busy with the dread doctors, Scott still found time to help train me. A month had passed and Scott and Stiles still weren’t on good terms. I had refrained from bringing it up to him, assuming they’d work it out on their own, but they didn’t so I couldn’t bite my tongue any longer. After he told me about Kira leaving to go with the skinwalkers - a group of people in New Mexico who were able to change between human and a variety of animals - to gain true control of her kitsune powers, I decided I would bring it up. “So you and Stiles still aren’t talking,” I pointed out when I dodged his hit.  
“He killed someone,” Scott defended himself as he swung.  
“Out of self-defence,” I reminded him once I caught his arm and twisted it behind his back, putting in a little more pressure as my anger towards him started to get the better of me. “He didn’t mean to,” I released him.  
“We can’t kill people,” Scott protested as he swung then grabbed my other arm in his hold before sending me to the ground. “If we do it makes us no different from them.”  
I kicked my legs out from under me and kicked him over my head, sending him landing on his back. I got up at the same time he did. “How many times has he had your back?” I quizzed. “Like that time in third grade when you killed the class goldfish and Stiles took the blame for you when he didn’t have to.”  
“That’s different,” he reached out to get a hold on my arm which I deflected.  
“In both scenarios lives were lost and the other covered,” I took hold of his arm, pulled him close, and kneed him in the gut.  
Scott coughed out and I released him. “It’s still not the same.”  
“It’s similar enough,” I sighed. “You need to understand that he couldn’t defend himself,” I looked up at him when he stood up straight. “It was an accident and he’s not like us.”  
Scott let out a sigh and nodded. “Okay.”  
“Okay.” I folded my arms. “So you need to talk things through with him.”  
“I will,” he promised me before beginning to fight with me again. “How are you? Stiles told me about Derek.”  
“I don’t know what to think,” I shook my head, getting my head into the zone. “Part of me thinks that he’s decided to be with Braeden instead but another part of me thinks he’s…dead,” I forced the word out.  
“I don’t think so. I would feel if he was dead - he is a part of my pack.”  
“I guess he made a choice,” I shrugged before Scott grabbed my arm and twisted it before turning me around and pushing me against the wall. I tapped, making Scott release my arm and taking a step back to let me turn to face him. I found him staring at me and I couldn’t tear my eyes away from his.  
As if we were thinking the same thing, I pulled onto the collar of his tank top as he cupped my face before we collided. My back pressed against the wall as my hands gripped at his hair as our kiss became furious. If Derek made a choice, then I was making one too. Why should I let my whole world revolve around him when I’m not even a single star in his sky? For a moment, I could be Scott’s entire world, which is more than Derek has ever openly offered.   
But it wasn’t enough for me. Scott’s cold hands didn’t hold my face as perfectly as Derek’s warm ones did. This kiss, although passionate, didn’t flow as smoothly as the ones I shared with Derek. And this was passionate for all the wrong reasons, with Scott it was a temporary passion that would end the moment the sun came up tomorrow, but with Derek, the sun could come up a million times and it would still feel like the first time. The currents of excitement running through me right now were cheap and ready to fuse out quickly and I was convinced that even if I never saw Derek again, every other person I kissed would pale in comparison. There was no warmth here, only heat. There was no passion here, only fire. There was no love here, only lust. I didn't want to be Scott’s world. I wanted to be Derek’s world and I knew that trying to substitute the former for the latter would only result in people getting hurt and losing a great friendship. Since I’ve already lost one, I don’t think I want to lose another.  
The both of us pulled away in unison, Scott turning his back to me as he ran his hands through his hair. “We shouldn’t have-”  
“No,” I cut him off, wiping my lips. “We can pretend like this never happened,” I suggested as I picked up my bag from the floor.  
“I am 100 percent okay with that,” he nodded, still turned away from me.  
“Me too,” I replied as I headed to the door. “I’ll see you around.”  
“Yeah!” he called as I opened the door. “I’ll see you around somewhere too!” I slammed the door shut behind me before heading to the parking lot and climbing into my car faster than I ever have and driving away.

“He’s called La Bête de Gévauden,” Stiles explained as he drove us to the school one night a few weeks later. “All the chimeras they had something in common - it was the fact that they all had skin grafts at one point, including Mason.”  
“What happened to him?” I asked.  
“The Beast he used to be a soldier in Paris centuries ago,” he began. “He turned into a werewolf through drinking rainwater from a werewolf’s footprint. He couldn’t control the shift and he was killing people. When a member of Argent’s family found out, she killed him but somehow he got resurrected and took over Mason.”  
“How do we stop him and what do you need me for?” we hopped out of the car.  
“Deaton and Corraelin were teaching you how to get someone to do whatever you wanted them to do by just calling their name, right?” he said as we got into the school.  
“Yeah, I just learned it and-and I’ve never done it before,” I began to doubt all the work I had put into my training as my nerves kicked in.  
“Well, you have to now. Your name is a huge part of your identity, so if you call Mason’s name, it could separate him from the Beast.”  
“And you won’t be doing it alone,” Lydia said walking from the end of the hall. “We’re going to do this together. Deaton said that your powers combined could be strong enough to separate the two of them.”  
“It’s worth a shot,” I decided with a sigh. “Where is it?”  
“In the library,” Lydia answered. “We have to go now before the Beast completely takes over Mason,” she took my hand and led me to the library.

When we got there, we found Scott trying to distract it by fighting it. It was safe to say, he was getting his ass kicked by it. “Okay, how do we do it?” I panted as my stomach formed knots.  
“We have to call his name together. Our combined powers will be enough to get their attention and separate them,” she took hold of my hand and we turned towards the Beast. It looked like an alpha - a man beast but bigger and stronger.  
I let my eyes shift as I gave into my siren side the slightest. Lydia brought her hands up along with mine. With both took in a deep breath and pushing our voices forward with our hands, Lydia let Mason’s name leave her lips as a banshee scream while I let his name leave mine as more of a command, the way I’d been taught.  
The Beast’s head snapped to us before a puff of smoke blocked its form. Lydia and I watched with bated breath, not knowing if the Beast was going to jump out and attack us from behind it or if it actually work. A dazed and exhausted Mason stepped out from the smoke before falling to the ground. Lydia and I ran over and picked him up and off of the ground. “Get him out of here,” I said to Lydia. “I think he’s going to need a lot of rest.” Lydia nodded before Stiles joined us to help her take Mason out. I turned to Scott who was back on his feet and healed, only looking a bit dishevelled. “Are you all right?” I asked him.  
“Yeah,” he nodded. “You were great,” he smiled.  
“Thanks,” I chuckled. I still felt awkward because it had been a few weeks since we kissed and we had yet to talk about it. “Listen,” I said at the same time as him and this made us both laugh awkwardly. “You go first.”  
“That kiss,” he began. “It was just a rebound thing, right?”  
“It was,” I confirmed. “Was it that for you?”  
“Absolutely,” Scott let out a breath of relief.  
“Okay,” I smiled, relieved that Scott didn’t have feelings for me. “Let’s just act like it never happened.”  
“I’m 100 percent okay with that,” he smiled back at me.

The rest of that semester had gone by smoothly. I missed Derek from time to time, but missing him often came with feelings of anger that I was still learning to get over. He chose Braeden over me and if it meant that he wouldn’t be leading me on anymore and that he wasn’t dead, then I guess it was okay. I think I’ll get over it soon. School, the hospital, and my friends keep me busy.   
The semester flew by as we were all busy keeping up our good grades with the hopes of getting into our dream schools. While Scott and I were pining for UC Davis, Stiles was looking at an internship at an FBI program. Malia was going to Paris for the summer and that was her only plan so far, and Lydia was going to go into MIT for science. Throughout the semester, Stiles had been worrying about all of us drifting apart when high school ended. We had all become such a tight knit group in these last four years that it worried him to see all of that end. However, we constantly assured him that we would always be friends mainly because aside from Liam, Mason, and Mason’s boyfriend Corey, no one else was going to be able to protect Beacon Hills like we could.


	46. Chapter 46

Scott, Lydia, and I sat at a picnic table right where the yearbook photos were being taken. Malia had been in the middle of getting hers taken but Stiles kept ruining them by walking into them, trying to talk to her about the sight we all found last night. Liam and his girlfriend Hayden were out in the woods last night when they found a car that had crashed into a tree near them. A little boy came out and told them that his parents were gone. While it seemed like a regular kidnapping case, Stiles was convinced it had to be supernatural. He had been trying to find something supernatural for the past three months that Beacon Hills had gone undisturbed.   
“Fine!” Malia growled. “I’ll just do them later,” she told the photographer before stomping over to our table with Stiles following her. “Thanks for ruining them,” she glared at Stiles.  
“I didn’t ruin them,” Stiles pointed to himself. “Why would you think I ruined them?”  
We replied that it was because he was trying to delay the idea of graduating for as long as possible and part of doing that was avoiding sitting in front of the yearbook camera at all costs. “Hey! The deputy searched the car!” my brother changed the topic. “No slugs and no exit hole,” he rambled. “Come on, suspicious bullet holes, missing parents, weird guy on a horse with a whip and the address the kid gave my dad led them to an abandoned house, so who’s coming with me to check it out!?”  
Scott, Lydia, Malia, and I glanced to each other, silently hoping the other would offer to fulfill Stiles’s request. None of us thought it was supernatural and attributed this to Stiles desperately wanting to get his mind off of graduating.  
“I’ve got to retake my photos,” Malia said.  
“Not interesting,” Lydia cautiously replied.  
“I can’t skip anymore class,” Scott added. “I missed 38 last semester!”  
“I’m making sure he’s not skipping any of his classes,” I said to my brother.  
When Stiles began to protest, the girl who was taking some yearbook photos, came over to us with her camera. “Hey, can I get a photo of you guys!?” she beamed.  
When Stiles began to protest, Scott and I pulled him down between us. I enveloped my brother in a hug and wore a giant smile as she snapped the picture.

After school, Stiles and Scott convinced me to go to the abandoned house with them because I couldn’t help but agree that I was curious as to why the boy would lead the police to an empty house. Handing us a flashlight, Stiles was the one to lead us into the house. When we got in, we found no furniture anywhere except for a dinner table that had some cutlery and wine glasses on it. Dust had accumulated over time and the emptiness of the rooms made the creaks of the floor even louder. I didn’t know whether the lack of furniture made it feel cooler in here or if it was the lack of personal touches that a home should have.  
The three of us headed towards the stairs slowly, noticing the cobwebs that had formed on the details of the banister. As we explored the second floor, we noticed more empty rooms. “Why the hell would he lead the police here?” I asked quietly.  
“Maybe he got the address wrong,” Scott supplied.  
“Or he lied,” Stiles rolled his eyes.  
“Why would he lie?”  
The question went unanswered when we reached the end of the corridor to find a closed door. Our pace slowed as each of us wasn’t sure what to expect behind that closed door. Would it be another empty room or would it be the opposite and filled with things that the rest of this house was lacking? Hesitantly, Stiles reached out and opened the door slowly. Where we thought there would be an empty room like the others, we found the kid’s bedroom - Alex’s room. There was a bed with a comforter dressing it that had the design of the galaxy on it, dark turquoise walls, posters of bands and race cars, and little action figures lined up on a desk.  
“He didn’t lie,” Stiles decided as we entered the room.  
“Why didn’t the police say anything about this?” Scott asked.  
“They didn’t know about it,” I answered. “They’d need a warrant to get up here and there’s no one to serve a warrant to since his parents disappeared.”  
“What?” Stiles spoke. I looked to him to find him looking to Scott who had slight panic written over his face.  
“I heard something,” he whispered before heading out the door with Stiles behind him.  
As I began to follow them out, I noticed that there were photos sitting on Alex’s desk. Figuring they would give us some idea of what his parents looked like, I leaned in closer to them only to find that the pictures were just of him. After further examination, I realized that none of them were centred on him and it looked like someone else was supposed to be in the picture. There was even one of him with his arm resting on nothing in a frame with the title #1 DAD. If his dad is missing from that picture then his parents must be missing from the other pictures which explains why they’re not centred. It’s like they were erased.  
I headed out of the room and turned to shut the door behind me to go tell the boys what I found. I stopped short and froze as I heard the clanking of metal and heavy footsteps echoing in the corridor behind me. Slowly, I gathered up all of my courage and I turned to look over my shoulder to find the silhouette of a man who matched Alex’s description as the man who took his parents. A black hat that covered his face, boots that went up to his knees, a long, dark trench coat, and long hair that stopped just above his shoulders. The anonymity his hat provided his face sent a chill down my spine as a fear of the unknown settled deep in my chest. He stood tall and slowly reached into his utility belt for his gun that sat on one hip while a whip was wrapped up on itself and sitting against his opposite hip in the belt.  
I let my eyes shift, but before I could start my siren song, he began to shoot at me. I dodged every bullet that went through the door and I found myself in the corner, covering my head to protect myself. Soon enough, the gunfire stopped before the boys and Liam and Mason came up to find me. I assumed Liam and Mason were the ones that Scott heard downstairs.  
“He was here,” I told them as they helped me up and I steadied my breathing. “The guy who took Alex’s parents was here.”  
“Why would he be here?” Scott asked.  
“Maybe because he took Alex,” Stiles replied before reaching behind me and pushing the door open to find an empty room with no remnants of Alex.

“They’re called ghost riders,” Stiles told me over the phone later that night as I was leaving the hospital.  
“They ride the storm and they take people,” Lydia added.  
“So that’s what they did to Alex?” I clarified as I opened my car door.  
“Yes, come to the school, I’ll be here,” my brother prompted.  
“I’m on my way,” I said before I hung up. In the reflection of my window, I could see the silhouette of someone behind me in the almost empty parking lot. I spun around, ready to take on whatever attack they were going to dish out, but I stopped short and my breath caught in my throat.  
“Hey Giselle,” Derek spoke cautiously as he held his hands behind his back.  
Words failed me in that moment. Was this just another dream? Was this some sort of hallucination due to the lack of sleep I’d been getting lately? It couldn’t have been him right in front of me. “What are you doing here?” I asked, thinking that his appearance couldn’t have come at an even worse time.  
“I came back,” he smiled. “Like I promised.”  
My confusion quickly disappeared and was replaced by anger. “I thought that was off considering you dodged every single one of my calls and eventually disconnected your phone,” I folded my arms, trying to remain strong even though the intensity of the desire to tackle him in a hug was almost overpowering me.  
Derek’s face fell as his eyebrows pulled together. “Giselle, my phone got disconnected because it broke. We found the Desert Wolf and we got into a fight and my phone was in my pocket, and it broke.” I hummed in response, not believing him. “Do you think I wanted to call this off?” he pointed between us.  
“There wasn’t an us,” I stressed.  
“I want there to be,” he fired back. “Every day that I was away from you, I was thinking about coming back to you.”  
“Is everything all right?” Dr. Finzer stepped between us as he exited his car.  
“Yes,” I sighed at the older man. “Yes Dr. Finzer everything is okay,” I gave him a smile.  
“You know my name?” he stared at me curiously. “Were you a patient of mine?” his face contorted into confusion.  
I mimicked his expression. “N-no,” I answered. “I’m a volunteer at the hospital,” my brows pulled together. “I’ve done a lot of coffee runs for you.”  
Dr. Finzer paused to think. “I don’t seem to remember.”  
“Have you been getting enough sleep?”  
“Yes, I have,” he replied, obviously offended by my comment.  
Derek and I watched him walk away before giving each other a confused look. “You stopped calling,” I picked up our conversation quickly. Partially because Stiles was waiting for me, but also because I missed talking to Derek, whether or not I was angry with him. I had spent so long without hearing his voice that I thought i’d be able to handle it when I heard it again, but I was wrong.  
“Because we were getting closer and closer to the Desert Wolf and that sort of took up all of our time.”  
“It took you a while,” I commented.  
“I’m here now,” he took a step towards me.  
As much as I wanted to find myself in Derek’s embrace after being out of it for so long, I didn’t know if I could really trust what he was saying. Nevertheless, I couldn’t waste anymore time. “We have to get out of here,” I opened my door. “I’ll explain on the way.”  
“So you believe me?” Derek said hopefully.  
“Not until I get Scott to listen to your heartbeat,” I called before shutting the door.

When we got to the school, I found multiple police cars surrounding it. I arrived at my parking spot to find it already occupied. While there wasn’t a sign up for car parking spaces, it was kind of like a seat in class - it was an unassigned assigned spot. I found Riley, a girl from my class, exiting her car.   
“Hey!” I called to her from out the window. “Riley, that’s my spot!”  
Riley’s brows pulled together in confusion. “There’s no assigned parking spots,” she scoffed, locking her doors.  
My eyes narrowed at her. “Yeah, but…I always park there, you know that.”  
“I don’t actually,” she shook her head before walking away.  
After sharing a peculiar look with Derek, I finally parked and we got out to figure out what was happening. Lydia texted me, telling me that she needed my help. I groaned, not knowing what to do. I didn’t know what was so important that the police had to be called, so I had to find Stiles who could explain it to me. I wanted to make sure everything was okay, but Lydia was waiting on me.  
“What is it?” Derek looked over my shoulder to my phone.  
“Lydia, she needs my help, but Stiles called me here, and my dad is probably here too-“  
“I’ll find Lydia and see if I can help her,” Derek suggested. “You go find your dad and Stiles.”  
I nodded before Derek took off, following Lydia’s scent. I got into the school and ran into Ms. Martin, Lydia’s mother and a secretary at the school. Lydia’s family seemed to have a knack for aging flawlessly, despite the crows feet around her green eyes, Ms. Martin was drop dead gorgeous - now that I think about it, the crow’s feet probably added to her beauty in some unexpected way. “Hey, Ms. Martin,” I greeted her after pushing past a few deputies in the hallway. “Have you seen my dad?”  
Ms. Martin stared at me for a moment. “Your dad?”  
“Yes, he’s here about whatever’s happening.”  
“Why would your father be here?”  
My eyes narrowed at Ms. Martin’s sudden memory loss, she has met my father multiple times and considering I go to school here, she knows me, which makes making the connection inevitable. “Because my dad’s the sheriff,” I answered. “Are you all right?” Ms. Martin didn’t answer and instead, she told me to stay where I was before walking away. “What the hell is in the water?” I muttered before I pulled my phone out. I dialled Stiles’s number and when he answered I told him everything that had just happened. “And I don’t know where you are, so just tell me where to meet you.”  
“Sorry,” Stiles said. “Wh-who is this?”  
“Stiles,” I rolled my eyes. “I get it, ha ha, Ms. Martin forgot who I was for some reason, but this isn’t the time for jokes, something is happening and there’s a dead body in the school!” I stomped my foot, relaying what I overheard the deputies in the hallway talking about.  
“I-I’m not kidding. How did you get my number?”  
“Stiles! It’s Giselle, your twin sister born from the same womb five minutes after you, you know who I am.”  
“O-okay,” Stiles chuckled. “I’m hanging up now. Right now.”  
“No, Stiles don’t-“ the beeping of the line being disconnected repeated in my ears before I slowly pulled my phone away from my ear. A sliver of me thought that maybe he did forget who I was, but a larger part of me told me he was playing some cruel joke on me. When the realization that my brother wouldn’t joke at a time like this, that sliver began to increase until I was completely undecided on what I believed. My hand couldn’t stop shaking as I put my phone back in my pocket.  
Then, I saw my father walking down the hallway. “Oh thank God,” I rushed over to him. “Listen,” I began once I got to him. “Everyone’s forgetting everything and I-I don’t know what to do because I’m the only one that does-“  
“Okay sweetheart,” my dad held his hand out to me. Sweetheart. He remembers me. I launched myself into his arms as my eyes filled with tears of relief. He returned the hug before pulling away. “Before you say anything else, why don’t you tell me your name?”  
My hands flew away from him as I took a step back. My heart fell into my stomach as my panting became heavier. The dots started to connect themselves in my head. He didn’t remember and neither did Stiles, Riley, Dr. Finzer, Ms. Martin. They were all forgetting-they forgot me. The way that everyone forgot about Alex’s parents. _No. This can’t be happening._ I took off down the hallway and through the doors before I ended up in the parking lot.  
“Giselle!” Derek’s voice boomed as he ran to me.  
I whipped my head to him just as he crossed the lawn to get to me. “Derek!?” I cried before he enveloped me in his arms. I held onto him tightly and while I didn’t know how he was remembering me, I was more thankful that I didn’t have to do this alone. “Everyone’s forgetting,” I told him as tears streamed down my cheeks.  
“I-I know, Malia forgot and Lydia was starting to forget,” he pulled back but behind his shoulder I saw a ghost rider approaching us on his horse.  
“Derek, do you see that?” I whispered as my eyes stayed glued to the ghost rider behind me.  
Derek whipped his head around, searching the view in front of us. “See what?” he looked back to me.  
“O-okay,” I shook my head. “Don’t look, okay? Just come with me,” I grabbed his hand and began to run in the opposite direction only to be stopped by another ghost rider on his horse who was a few feet away from us. After dodging another ghost rider, I pulled Derek along with me towards my car. “Don’t try to fight them because they’ll take you too!” I yelled as we got into the car.  
My hands wouldn't stop shaking as I tried to find the key to my car. Once I got it and put it in the ignition, I looked up to find a clear path to drive but my view was blocked by the ghost riders surrounding my car. We were outnumbered by a mile and there was no use in fighting it because they were going to win. If they wanted to take me, then fine, but I won’t let them take Derek. I let out a breath as I pulled out the key, ready to give myself up to the ghost riders.  
“What are you doing?” Derek demanded.  
“There’s nowhere to go,” I whispered before turning to him with tears in my eyes. His eyes were a mix of confusion and panic, something I know he would forget he ever felt. “I’m going to be taken,” I told him. “So you have to find some way to remember me. It’s the only way you’ll get me back.”  
“No,” he took hold of my hand. “I won’t let them take you.”  
“You have to. We can’t fight them without both of us disappearing. You have to stay here and get the others to remember me so you can save me. You can save me again,” I clutched onto his hand.  
“How am I going to remember you?” he asked me. “If they’re going to make you disappear, how do I do it?”  
“Find something,” I urged. “Like the first night you saved me,” I couldn’t help but smile. “Or the amount of times we couldn’t seem to get the perfect first kiss.” He chuckled as tears filled his eyes. “Like the night I died in your arms - when I told you how beautiful I think you are,” I said. “Remember how beautiful I think you are.”  
Just as Derek grabbed my face to kiss me, the ghost rider tore me out of the driver’s side door and I was gone.


	47. Chapter 47

Derek arrived at the Stilinski house that night, not really knowing what drew him here. He found himself sitting against the wall of the house, facing the driveway of the house. He wasn’t here to see Stiles or his father or his mother, there was some other reason that he arrived there, but he just couldn’t put his finger on it. When headlights shone upon him as the Sheriff’s car pulled into the driveway, he suddenly realized how inappropriate his arrival was. The headlights had shut off along with the car.  
“Derek?” the Sheriff called as he got out of his car.  
Derek shoved his hands in his pockets. “I was just going,” he began to walk off as embarrassment flooded him.  
“Hold on,” the Sheriff demanded and Derek complied, not being able to look him in the eye. “This is the third night this week,” he folded his arms. “If you have to talk to me, Claudia, or Stiles-“  
“No,” he cut him off. “It’s not that,” he looked over his shoulder and up at the house. A window sat against the roof, the light from inside the room glowing. Next to that was the rest of the roof which felt empty. “It’s…” he trailed off, not being able to explain it. Derek looked to the Sheriff, “It’s late,” he concluded. “I should go. It won’t happen again.” And with that, Derek was off.  
There was something missing about the house. There was a detail about it that wasn’t there that threw Derek off. Every night for the past few days, Derek had been drawn to the house - specifically the right side of it. He found himself looking up at the roof, vaguely remembering one night where he was sat up there for some reason. He had began to lose sleep over it, feeling like he had to remember to do something, but he just couldn’t and he didn’t know how to trigger the memory.

The Sheriff watched as the werewolf stalked off for the third night in a row. He didn’t know what it was that Derek wanted and why he was so apprehensive to ask for it as he didn’t seem like the type to hold back on what he wanted. There was a thought in the back of his head that he should be mad at Derek for something, but he didn’t know what. He and Stiles had spoken to him at the animal clinic and the three of them were fighting about something. Although it was a vague memory, he remembered being furious at Derek. The Sheriff was a rational man so he decided he shouldn’t let that feeling persist, especially if he couldn’t pinpoint the reason for it.

Stiles opened his locker the next day at school, throwing some textbooks in that had a little too much room to fit. He paused, staring around the locker, trying to figure out what was missing. Although it was a small locker, it gave Stiles the impression that there was more room than he needed.  
“What is it?” Scott asked from beside him, peering into the locker himself.  
“Does my locker seem…bigger to you?” he glanced to his best friend.  
Scott glanced at Stiles’s locker and the other lockers next to his. “I mean, they all seem the same.”  
“It feels like I have a bit too much space,” he examined his locker some more.  
“There’s nothing wrong with a little more space,” Scott smirked before his eyes landed on the locker door. “I haven’t heard that in a while,” his fingers ran over the word Mischief written in black sharpie.  
Stiles glared at the nickname his mother had given him. “Why the hell is that there?” he tried to rub off the word but it wouldn’t budge. His eyes soon landed on a photo of Scott in his locker. He pulled the photograph off and inspected it. Scott was beaming wildly at the camera but it wasn’t centred on him. “What is this?” he looked to Scott.  
Scott peered over his shoulder. “I-I don’t know,” he looked to Stiles then to the locker. “Look,” he pulled off another photo of the two of them. “There’s a huge gap in between us,” he pointed at the space between them.  
“It’s almost like someone was supposed to be there,” Stiles observed, pulling off multiple photos from the locker door and finding similarities. Before the two boys could delve deeper into the mystery, the school bell rang. Promising they would investigate it later, the boys put the photos back on the door before shutting it and heading to class.

Lydia sat in the library that morning for her free period, staring off across the library. Her mind drifted to the night the library was ravaged by the Beast. The idea was ludicrous, but Lydia couldn’t help but attribute the tickle on her brain to that event alone.  
“I don’t think you’re his type,” Malia whispered from beside her.  
The redhead looked over to the werecoyote then back to where her gaze was fixated. Her eyes had been on Mason. She shook her head to get herself out of her daze. “Every time I look at him, I can’t help but remember the Beast.”  
“I mean that’s normal. He _was_ the Beast,” Malia shrugged. “And you saved him,” she nudged the girl, sending her a smile.  
“I don’t know how I did it,” Lydia mused. “I mean, I remember I tried it on my own once and it didn’t work and when I tried again...it did.” It didn’t make sense to her. Why wouldn’t it work the first time, but it worked the second time?  
“Yeah,” Malia replied in a ‘duh’ tone. “And you saved him.” Suddenly, a book slammed onto the floor but amidst the bang, Lydia’s head snapped towards it as she heard the faintest sound of a woman’s voice. She stood up, finding herself intrigued by the sound. “Lydia, what is it?” Malia stood up.  
“Did you hear that?” the redhead questioned.  
“The book dropping?” she glanced to the student who dropped it. “Yeah.”  
“No,” Lydia shook her head. “Not just that.”  
“What did you hear?”  
“A voice. A girl’s voice.”  
“Whose voice?”  
Lydia’s green eyes fell to meet Malia’s. “I don’t know.”

“Stiles,” Malia said in between kisses. “We shouldn’t,” she pulled away, glancing out at the night sky through his window.  
Stiles lay beside her on his bed that night. “Do-do you not want to?”  
“No, I just…” she let out a huff. “I feel like there’s something I need to be listening out for.”  
“Like what?” Stiles asked. “My mom and dad are both at the station. We have the house for ourselves.”  
Malia sat on the edge of the bed, putting her head in her hands. “Lydia said she heard something in the library today,” she looked to her boyfriend. “Like a voice.”  
“Whose voice?” Stiles sat next to her, holding her as she shrugged at his question. “Scott and I found some weird things in my locker this morning,” he remembered.  
“Like what?” Stiles recounted the photos that seemed to have something missing from them. “Like that?” Malia pointed forward to Stiles’s wall.  
His head whipped forward before he slowly stood up and made his way over to where his girlfriend was pointing. When he got close enough, he found photos of himself that were not centred on him. It didn’t make sense for Stiles to have photos of only himself in his room. He pulled it off of his wall and turned around to Malia. “Exactly like that.”  
“So what does that mean?” she stood up.  
“It means that someone’s missing,” he looked to her, figuring that the photo looked as though someone was missing from it. “Someone we know.”

“Stiles!” Scott called down the hallway the next morning.  
Stiles stopped in the middle of the hallway, turning to his best friend. “Hey-“  
“Look at this,” he shoved a photo in Stiles’s hands.  
Stiles found the photo that the yearbook photographer took of he, Scott, Malia, and Lydia. However, there was a space in between him and Lydia. He pointed at it frantically. “Another space,” he looked to his friend.  
“Like all the other photos.”  
“Like what happened with Alex’s parents.”  
“What does this mean, dude? That someone we know has been taken by the ghost riders?”  
“That has to be it,” Stiles concluded.

Ever since last night, Lydia heard the thundering of a train on tracks that hadn’t subsided. The woman’s voice that she had heard in the library was louder and she was calling Mason’s name, the way Lydia called his name in the library to save him. An excessive amount of ibuprofen and a heat pad against her head hadn’t stopped the headache that had come from the noises nor the constant wonder of what this all meant.  
She took a seat in math that afternoon, trying her best to focus on the class while the screeching of the train on its tracks was still deafening. The seat that was once empty next to her had been filled by a doctor in her scrubs and coat. Lydia glanced around the room to see if anyone noticed the unlikely student next to her after blinking a few times to ensure that she wasn’t seeing things. Cautiously, she leaned over to the woman. “Excuse me, who are you?” she whispered. “What are you doing in this class?” The woman slowly turned to her and opened her mouth to respond but the only thing Lydia heard was an even higher-pitched screeching of the train on its tracks. The girl clutched her ears as her eyes pulled together in an attempt to fight the hammering in her head, trying her best to block out the noise and when it stopped, she found the doctor was gone.  
When the bell rang and Lydia left the classroom, she noticed the woman running down the hallway. Desperate for answers, Lydia took off after her, following her turn into an empty classroom. She was close to getting answers as to what all of this noise meant and making it stop.

She found herself back at the school, the night she and Stiles discovered the ghost riders with the Wild Hunt were the ones taking people. The bright sun of the afternoon had gone down and it was now dark outside. It was quiet in the school as she sat in the classroom. Her pulse was racing and her eyes were wide. “She’s next,” she spoke even though she didn’t know who she was talking about. The words spilled out of her almost like an automated message.  
“Who?” Malia’s voice rang in her ears as Lydia partially relived the night.  
“We have to tell her!” the redhead sprung up from her seat.  
“I’m faster - I can get to her faster,” Derek’s voice replied although he was nowhere in sight.  
“Derek, wait!” she cried as she followed him out the door.

“Lydia!” Derek’s voice called, bringing her back to reality. She looked up at Derek who now stood before her, holding onto her arms to stop her from going any further. The sun was shining brightly outside again and the hallways were filled with chatty students. “What were you doing?” Derek asked.  
Lydia glanced around, trying to understand the change in scenery and atmosphere of the hallway. “Trying to remember,” the girl panted. Her breath hitched as she realized his presence before her. “What are you doing here?”  
Derek released her. “You’ve been hearing things, haven’t you?”  
“How did you know that?”  
His eyes left hers. “Because I have too.” As the two walked down the hallway, Derek explained the girl’s voice he had been hearing. It was one calling his name, telling him to remember.  
“Remember what?” Lydia looked up at him.  
“I don’t know,” Derek admitted defeatedly.  
Lydia took her turn to explain the sounds and voice she’d been hearing as well. “We’re all missing someone,” she concluded. “You, me, Stiles, Scott, even Malia.”  
“What if we’re all missing the same person?”  
“Why did you come back?” she asked. “To Beacon Hills.” The last Lydia remembered, Derek had left to hunt down the Desert Wolf with Braeden. She, for one, assumed that he wouldn’t be returning after all of the traumatic things that happened, including the losses of his own pack members.  
The question stumped Derek too. He remembered his decision to stay away from Beacon Hills after helping Braeden with the Desert Wolf, only for a little bit, but he found himself back here again and not being able to leave. “I don’t know,” he shrugged. “It’s like when you go into a room, but you forget why you went in there when you get there.”  
“We were here the night that Stiles and I figured it out,” Lydia folded her arms. “Me, you, and Malia were all in that room. We were trying to get to someone.”  
“It had to be the girl,” Derek concluded. “The girl’s voice we’ve been hearing.”

That night, Scott had gone to Dr. Deaton’s clinic to try and piece together why there were so many holes in his memory along with Stiles’s. The holes had to be connected with the Wild Hunt in some way, but it didn’t make sense for this to be happening.  
“The Wild Hunt are attracted to war and mayhem,” Dr. Deaton said. “I’ve never heard of them taking memories. It’s almost like you have a case of phantom limb syndrome.” Dr. Deaton explained that when war amputees have lost their limbs in battle, it leaves a feeling of an itch that they can’t scratch, similar to the one that Scott and Stiles were feeling. Dr. Deaton advised them to go to sleep in attempts to assist their subconsciouses in telling them what was missing.

“It was that night at the rave,” Stiles explained to Scott and Derek the next day in his room. When Scott told Stiles and Derek the information that Dr. Deaton told him, the three of them decided to meet when they all realized that they had dreams that they couldn’t fully explain. “I was at the club, lining it with mountain ash so we could trap Jackson and whoever was controlling him.”  
“So you lined the whole building with it, what’s your point?” Derek folded his arms as he stayed standing while Scott sat on Stiles’s bed.  
“I don’t remember going around the whole building.”  
“So you only did half of it?” Scott’s brows pulled together.  
“And the other half was already done.”  
“Who was helping you?”  
“I don’t think there was anyone else to help,” Stiles slumped down onto his chair. “I was the only one who could touch the mountain ash out of all of us. So whoever’s missing has to be human then?” Scott and Derek shrugged in agreement. “What about you?” Stiles asked Scott.  
“I was in the warehouse - in Argent’s warehouse,” he began. “I was fighting…”  
“With who?” Derek asked.  
Scott racked his brain, remembering the dream, but he didn’t remember seeing another person. “I don’t know. There wasn’t anyone…”  
“So you were just fighting? By yourself?” Stiles cocked his head to the side.  
“That’s how it looked in the dream. But I wasn’t in any danger,” he shook his head. “I don’t think we were fighting for real.”  
“Maybe you were training her?” Derek said.  
“Why would I have to train her if she was human?” Scott questioned.  
“Because she was part of your pack?” Stiles leaned back in his seat. “The way that I am.”  
“What happened after?” Derek prompted.  
“We were done fighting and then something happened,” Scott tried to focus on what he was feeling in the dream. “I felt embarrassed,” he pinpointed the emotion.  
“For what?”  
“I-I don’t know,” he shook his head. “I did something and I felt embarrassed - I regretted it.”  
“If she was a girl,” Stiles began. “Maybe you kissed her. Maybe you had a crush on her.”  
Scott shook his head, ringing his hands. “It wasn’t like that,” he looked up. “It was like a spur of the moment thing that I didn’t think twice about. But I didn’t see anything about who she was.”  
The three stayed silent before Stiles called on Derek. “It was the night I almost caught Jackson in the industrial area,” Derek sighed. “The night Argent tried to kill him but couldn’t,” he recalled the dream. “I fought him off but then the Argents showed up and I left. It was something telling me to go back and make sure he was okay, but I knew he would be fine.”  
“You guys _have_ worked past everything,” Scott shrugged.  
“No,” Derek looked to him. “This was before that,” his brows pulled together.  
“What if it wasn’t something telling you to go back?” Stiles suggested. “But someone.”  
“The girl,” Derek’s face lit up with realization. “I came here after that.”  
“Here?” Stiles was taken aback. “Why here?”  
“I didn’t go home after I left, I was here but I didn’t come in.”  
“Where did you go?” Scott questioned.  
“I pulled up into the driveway and I left.”  
“That seems like an unnecessary stop,” Stiles observed.  
“No,” Scott shook his head. “If the girl was telling him to go back, she had to have been there that night,” he looked to Derek. “And you saved her from Jackson and brought her here.”  
“Why here?” Stiles said.  
Scott looked to his best friend. “Because she lived here.”  
“Like what? She was my sister?”  
“Probably!” Scott decided. “She’s human and so are you, Derek was probably with her that night and brought her here,” he spun around to Derek. “That’s why you come here at night.”  
“Why would I come here for her?” Derek wondered.  
“You two had to have been friends,” Stiles decided. “Good friends if you’re here every damn night,” he muttered before his eyes lit up with realization and he stood up. “My mom and dad,” he began. “They told me that they didn’t think I was going to be an only child.”  
“What do you mean?” Scott stood up.  
“When my mom was pregnant with me, the doctor told her and my dad that they would be expecting twins, but when the time came around, it was just me…?”  
“She had to have been your twin sister,” Derek stood up.  
“But she wasn’t delivered?” Scott questioned.  
“That’s what we have to find out,” Stiles decided.  
As the three of them made it a few feet out of Stiles’s bedroom, Stiles stopped short, glancing at the blank wall to his left. It was adorned with the flowery wallpaper his mother loved so much, but it looked out of place - almost like it shouldn’t be there.  
“What is it?” Derek returned to his side.  
“This wall,” he reached out to touch it. “It’s…empty. Something’s missing,” he glanced to Scott when he appeared by his side. “Something big.”


	48. Chapter 48

“No sweetheart,” Claudia Stilinski shook her head at her son. Her brows pulled together in confusion and at the pain in her chest as she ran a pale, slender hand through her brown, shoulder length hair. The topic of the second child she and her husband were planning for always left her with a slight pain in her chest. “The doctor had read the scan wrong.”  
“He was a newer doctor, so we let it go,” Noah Stilinski added onto his wife’s point as he sat beside her on the couch in the living room, wrapping an arm around her the moment their son brought up the topic of the twin they were expecting, but never arrived.  
“Even if he was new,” Scott began cautiously, sensing the pain that was radiating from Stiles’s mother and father from the opposite side of the coffee table they were sitting on. “Wouldn’t he have seen a scan like that before? How could he get it wrong?”  
“Maybe he was nervous,” Claudia suggested. “We _were_ two of his first patients.”  
“Mom, that doesn’t make sense,” Stiles sighed from beside his friend.  
“Of course it does,” she leaned over and took her son’s hands in hers. “Mischief,” she began and Stiles couldn’t help but wince at the nickname now, knowing that it was another link to his potential sister. “People make mistakes. Sometimes they’re bad, like this situation,” she sighed. “But,” she forced a smile. “Sometimes they’re good. Like when they thought my dementia was worse than it was.”  
“She’s still a medical mystery,” Noah reached over and placed a kiss on her head. “But because it wasn’t bad enough, the dementia went away with the new medication that had just been put on the market.”  
“But if your brain was deteriorating,” Derek began, not being able to stay quiet any longer. “What happened when you were cured?”   
“Slowly, it regained its structure,” she answered with a smile. “It sounds impossible, I know,” she put her hands up. “But the science behind it is far more advanced than I could ever begin to know.”  
“We’re sorry, son,” Noah said to Stiles, sending him an apologetic smile. “I know that you’re curious about who your twin could have been - we are too - but you just have to learn to cope with it and not dwell on it too much.”

That evening, as Lydia and Malia were studying, Lydia was going over the highlighted notes Malia had after Malia explained the different colours to her. The green highlighter was for the things she understood, the yellow one signified the things she hadn’t quite grasped yet, and red was for the things she was completely lost on. Being a coyote for a big portion of her life took a blow to her academic career which everyone in the pack worked hard for to try and get her up to speed with the rest of them. Since Lydia was clearly the smartest in the group, she spent the most time helping Malia.  
“Why is this word in red?” Lydia pointed to the page of the biology textbook that laid on her desk.  
Malia looked over her shoulder. “Gazelle,” she read. “There’s something about it…” she trailed off before shrugging and returning to her notebook.  
“Gazelle,” Lydia repeated.

Lydia sprung up in bed, awaking from her nightmare of the night she conquered the Beast, covered in sweat. “Giselle!” she cried. When she got her breathing under control, she recalled what she had said. “Giselle,” she whispered the name, it felt familiar on her tongue. “Giselle,” she repeated the name louder. “Giselle.”

“Are you sure that was the name?” Derek demanded of Lydia at the animal clinic the next day. This process of finding out who this girl was and why she was so important became taxing on Derek. However, he couldn’t stop his mind from wandering back to the topic and slowly he began to wonder what made her so special to him. Who was she, apart from Stiles’s sister and Scott’s friend? Who was she to him? What did she look like? Was her face as beautiful as her voice that kept replaying in his mind over and over and over again?  
“I’m sure of it, her name was Giselle,” she turned to Stiles who stood next to her. “Does that name mean anything to you?”  
“Besides it sounding vaguely familiar,” he threw his hands up. “Not really.”  
“In the dream,” Lydia began, looking to Dr. Deaton. “It was the night I separated the Beast from Mason. I called his name, but I don’t think I was alone.”  
“Why not?” Dr. Deaton rested his hands on the metal table in the operating room.  
“I called his name but he didn’t look to me.”  
“Where did he look?” Scott wondered.  
In her mind, she watched the Beast’s attention scan over Lydia before landing- “Beside me,” she finished her thoughts out loud.  
“Did you see who it was?” Derek asked.  
“No,” she shook her head and sighed in defeat. “I just woke up and called her name.”  
“You said you don’t think you saved Mason on your own,” Stiles said. “So does this dream mean that she helped you?”  
“If she was human, I don’t know how she could have,” Scott interjected.  
“Are there any other supernatural beings that can use their voices to control people?” Lydia looked to the veterinarian.  
“Only one that I know of,” Dr. Deaton’s eyebrows pulled together. “A siren, but I haven’t heard of a lot of them - especially not in Beacon Hills.”  
“She had to have been that then,” she threw her hands up.  
“But if she was then she can’t be Stiles’s sister,” Scott pointed out. “If Stiles is human, she had to be as well.”  
“Sirens grow into their powers,” Dr. Deaton informed them. “She may not have been when she was born, but she could’ve become one with time.”  
“There are no supernatural creatures in my family,” Stiles refuted. “My parents didn’t even know the supernatural existed before we told them.”  
“What if they did and they just didn’t tell you?” Lydia suggested.  
“They wouldn’t do that.”  
“How can you be so sure?” Derek raised a brow at him.  
More than usual, Stiles was feeling a great disdain towards Derek over the past few weeks. His comments and overall negative attitude almost seemed to flip a switch in Stiles’s brain that changed his mood from happy to sour in a matter of seconds, which he had to admit, was a record for Derek. While he first pinpointed it to the idea that the added stress of this missing person contributed to that, Stiles knew that wasn’t it. When the bell on the door rang upon someone opening it, Stiles’s head snapped to it. The sound grabbed his attention more than it should have. He realized how vaguely he remembered his last visit to the clinic. All he remembered was that they had all just come back from New Mexico after saving Scott and Kira.  
“Stiles, what is it?” Scott asked when Malia appeared in the doorway.  
“When was the last time we were all here together?” Stiles questioned. “Aside from Lydia,” he turned to the group. “We were all here together, when was it?” The group looked to each other confused, just as he suspected. “After our trip to Mexico,” he gave them the answer when they came up with nothing. “I was mad at you,” he pointed to Derek who tried to remember what Stiles was telling him. “Because you left.”  
“When I went to go hunt the Desert Wolf with Braeden,” Derek remembered.  
“Why were you mad at him?” Malia asked.  
“Why did you all come here after Mexico?” Lydia added.  
Again, they all looked to each other and came up with nothing as they tried hard to put the pieces together like Stiles was. “My dad was with us,” Stiles said. “He was mad at you too for leaving,” he looked to Derek. “Because you were leaving with Braeden.”  
“Why does that matter?” Scott asked.  
“Because of Giselle,” Derek figured. “I was leaving with Braeden and I don’t think that Stiles would have any objections about that,” he muttered the last part.  
“Unless she was my sister,” Stiles figured. “Why else would my dad and I get mad about that?”  
“Wait,” Malia held up her hand, stopping anyone from saying anything further. “Why did Stiles get mad at Derek for leaving with another woman?”  
Everyone looked to Derek as his eyes fell to the ground. A warm feeling started in his heart and spread to the rest of his body. He suppressed a shiver that ran down his back and slowed his breathing that increased along with his heart rate.  
“He loved her,” Scott said after combing through the confusion radiating from Derek’s chemosignals and finding love hidden in it. “And she loved you.” He turned to his friend, “That’s why you and your dad were upset,” he said to Stiles.  
“Why did we bring her here after New Mexico then?” Stiles wondered.  
“What if she got hurt?” Lydia suggested. “And if she is a siren, like I think she is, then the only person who could’ve helped her was Deaton.”  
“I don’t know,” Malia shook her head. She had never been afraid to go against the crowd when she felt it was right, but now she felt a bit of apprehension since everyone was set on finding ‘Giselle’. “Maybe we’re all just looking into it too much.”  
“No,” Derek replied sharply before anyone could respond. If something was bothering him this much and keeping him up at night, it had to mean something. “She’s real,” he decided. “She has to be,” he added when doubt reared its ugly head.

“Giselle,” Claudia mused at Lydia and Stiles that morning in the living room as she sat next to her husband. “That was one of the names I was thinking of using for either Stiles if he turned out to be a girl or his twin if it was a girl.”  
“See,” Stiles began, throwing his arms out in front of him to gesture at what his mother just said. “That proves it! That means that there is a Giselle, she was just taken by the Wild Hunt!”  
“No Stiles,” she smiled somberly, the pain in her chest returning. “I don’t think so,” her eyes fell to the carpet as she fidgeted with her fingers.  
“Mrs. Stilinski,” Lydia began, expecting this push back from Stiles’s mother. “It has to be her. If it’s her we just have to remember!”  
“Lydia,” the Sheriff stopped the girl, his anger growing as much as his wife’s pain was. “I think that’s enough,” he decided, noticing his wife’s emotional state.  
“Dad,” Stiles pleaded. “Your daughter could-“  
“ _My daughter_ -“ his voice boomed. “Doesn’t exist,” he sighed. “I think that’s enough,” he repeated, more firmly this time.

“It’s a relic,” Lydia said to Scott, Stiles, and Malia in the hallway. She handed over the student ID she was holding. “Jake went missing, but his ID was left behind,” she explained. “That girl - Gwen’s sister, Phoebe left behind a relic too,” she said. “Hayden said Gwen found her sister’s bracelet on her bedroom floor.”  
“How does someone who’s erased leave something behind?” Malia asked as Scott and Stiles inspected the ID.  
“A conservation of mass. The total mass of any isolated system remains constant.”  
“So the ghost riders have the advantage of riding the storm - the thunder - but they have the weakness of the conservation of mass.”  
Their advantage meant that the ghost riders could appear anywhere. In hopes of saving Gwen from being taken from the ghost riders next after she saw them take Phoebe, Mason and Liam threw a party to keep Gwen safe and hidden amongst the crowds of people, however this plan backfired when everyone at the party saw the ghost rider which meant they were next to be taken.  
“A relic would prove Giselle existed,” Stiles decided. “And we can save her.”

Lydia and Stiles volunteered to be the brave souls who would bring the relic to the Sheriff’s attention at the station later on in the day. Lydia believed that if she could search Stiles’s house, she would be able to find some relic of Giselle’s existence. “You can’t just erase people,” Lydia concluded to Stiles’s father. “They leave things behind.”  
The Sheriff looked to his son and Lydia, a blank stare on his face. He was unsure what to think and the constant, sudden mention of his ‘daughter’ was beginning to spark his anger for the second time that day. However, it elevated and soon, he was going to reach his breaking point.  
“For the love of God,” Stiles sighed. “Dad,” he leaned over his father’s desk in his office. “If we can find something that proves Giselle existed then we can bring her back - we could bring every missing person back.”  
The Sheriff sighed and tossed the student ID they handed him back onto his desk. “I couldn’t sleep last night,” he began, reaching his breaking point. “So I decided I would work on some cases - look through some files, but they were in my car,” he sat up in his seat. “On my way back in from the car, I tripped over a shoe and it sent the papers going everywhere,” his eyes fell to his desk, still unable to understand why he did what he did. “Without thinking, I yelled a name.”  
Stiles glanced to Lydia in anticipation before looking back to his father, “Giselle.”

Upon their arrival at the house, Lydia and Stiles took off down the hallway towards his bedroom, but Lydia stopped short and turned to a wall. The wall that caught Stiles’s attention when they first realized that someone was missing from their group of friends. A pull in her chest stopped her from moving her attention away from the wall as she tried to understand what was so special about it.  
“There’s something about it, right?” Stiles said to her before she had the time to ponder further. “It’s not just me?”  
Lydia stayed silent as she reached up to the wallpaper, trying to get her train of thought back. She pinched the loose flap of it between her fingers and began to slowly pull it down as Stiles watched in anticipation to see what she revealed.  
“Hey!” Claudia yelled, grabbing onto Lydia’s wrist.  
The two teenagers turned to her and the redhead realized the scared look that flashed across Claudia’s face. “You’re hurting me,” Lydia said.  
“Mom, let go,” Stiles pried his mother’s hand off of Lydia, slightly embarrassed that his parent acted that way towards his friend.  
The girl glanced to the wall then back at Claudia. There was something suspicious about the look Claudia had before she caught herself. Before deciding to ask her about it, Lydia thought it was best to leave it alone for now. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have done that.”  
“I think that’s something we can agree on,” she spat.  
“Mom, she didn’t mean to-“  
“This,” Claudia pointed to the wall and looked to her son. “Is coming out of your allowance,” she decided before walking away.  
“I’m sorry,” Lydia whispered to him.  
“Hey, it’s okay,” Stiles put his hands on her shoulders. “You felt something,” he said. “There’s something there.”  
Lydia nodded frantically. “I know it.”

Derek had shown up at the school in the early afternoon the next day. He had decided that if the last thing they remembered in relation to Giselle was the night at the school there had to be some kind of relic of her here. Stiles had told him that he and Lydia hadn’t found anything in his house, so he figured that the last place she was had to have had a relic of her.  
On the nights Derek stayed up, wondering what it was he came back to Beacon Hills for, he imagined the day where he would finally remember because it meant he’d get some sleep. However, he hadn’t had an adequate amount of sleep in the last week. He had stayed up trying to find some way to remember the girl because he figured that if they loved each other, there had to be some way to remember her. “Remember…” he whispered under his breath, hearing her faint voice say the word in his head. “Remember…” he looked around the parking lot, desperate for clues. “Remember what?” Derek’s heavy eyes rolled, knowing he’d had this conversation with himself for the past few nights and each time, it got him nowhere. “What the hell am I doing here?” he questioned himself as he turned to leave the parking lot.  
When his eyes locked onto the small, red car the sat off centre in the parking lot, he couldn’t help but be drawn to it. He approached it cautiously, looking into the window to see if there was anything that could explain his sudden interest in it. When he came up with nothing, he tore his gaze away from the car and he found Lydia standing in front of the car.  
“We have to get inside that thing,” she decided. Before Derek could do anything, a tow truck had pulled up behind Lydia. A man in his light blue button up and dark blue slacks jumped out of the truck before heading over to the car. “What are you doing?” Lydia questioned, taking a stance in front of the car even though the man before her stood a couple of heads taller than her.  
“I have orders to take this to the impoundment lot,” the man answered as he glanced to his clipboard.  
“But it’s mine,” she placed a hand on the hood of the car. “This is my car.”  
The man laughed at the redhead. “This is yours.”  
“What’s it going to take for you drop it?” Derek asked, folding his arms and standing next to Lydia.  
“Drop fee is 150,” the man folded his arms.  
“Done,” Derek answered immediately and dug into his pocket for his wallet.

Without needing anymore interruptions once the man drove off, Derek broke the door handle, sending the door to fly open. Anticipation filled him as his heart skipped a beat, wondering what he would find in here. He climbed in and opened the passenger door for Lydia. Immediately, he was enveloped by his scent. “Whoa,” he muttered.  
“What is it?” Lydia’s head snapped to him. “Did you catch a scent?”  
“Yeah,” he looked to her. “Mine.”  
“What, like you’ve been in here before?”  
Derek nodded, not being able to explain it. The both of them began to rummage through every crevice of the car, looking in the console, the glove compartment in front of the passenger seat, between the seats, but the two of them came up with nothing.  
“What about this?” Lydia asked, holding up an opened envelope.  
Derek took it out of her hands and pulled out the paper inside. “There’s no name.”  
“If this is her car, it has to be for her.”  
“129 Woodbine Lane,” Derek read, the name ringing a bell. “That’s Stiles’ house.”

Hesitantly, Derek knocked on the door of the Stilinski household. He knew he was pushing his luck and a part of him felt bad to have to excessively bring up something that hurt both Claudia and Noah, but he knew that it was a means to an end. He found Claudia on the other side of the door when it opened. “Derek,” she smiled. “What a nice surprise,” she turned her head over her shoulder. “Noah!” she called. “Derek’s here!”  
When he was invited in, Derek took a seat across from Claudia and Noah. “Lydia and I found this,” he handed Noah the piece of paper that had their address on it. “It was in a car in the parking lot of the school - a red punch buggy.”  
Noah and Claudia reviewed the letter before handing it back to Derek. “Neither of us has a punch buggy and Stiles has his jeep.”  
“But if your address is on this paper, then maybe that means that this car belonged to Giselle, especially if it has your address on it and Giselle might be your daughter. Have any cars been reported missing?”  
“Only a few,” Noah replied, not as hostile as he once was about this topic. Ever since the night he told Lydia and Stiles about, he had seriously began to consider the possibility of Giselle’s existence. “But none of them are a red punch buggy.”  
“This has to mean something,” Derek pleaded. He felt like everyone was beginning to give up on this besides Lydia, Stiles, and himself. Scott had been too preoccupied with school, Malia had never believed in Giselle in the first place, and Liam and Mason were too busy with their own revelations of the ghost riders to even try and remember. “This is a relic of Giselle’s existence,” his hands began to shake as he gripped the paper tighter, swallowing the lump in his throat.  
“You can’t say that for sure,” Claudia shook her head, her pity for Derek written all over her face.  
“Then what does it mean?” he asked her. “Why were Lydia and I so drawn to the car that neither of us have seen before?”  
“Because it’s a car that neither of you have seen before.”  
“You don’t understand,” Derek shook his head. “It’s like I was being pulled to that car and so was Lydia,” he stood up, aggravated. “My scent was already in the car before I even got into it.” Noah stood up immediately after, putting a hand on Derek’s chest. Before he could say anything, Derek took a step back from the both of them. “I’m sorry,” he sighed, realizing just how easy all of this made him lose his temper. “I just…” he looked away from the both of them, feeling embarrassed. “Can I…” he pointed down the hallway, trying to excuse himself to go to the bathroom to compose himself.  
“Of course,” Claudia said, feeling sorry for Derek.  
Derek shoved the papers in his back pocket as he walked away from the couple. He felt defeated, but he couldn’t give up. He knew that Giselle was real and that she had to have been taken by the Wild Hunt. If Scott and Malia weren’t bothering to try, how long would it be before Stiles and Lydia gave up? Giselle needed someone to believe in her and remember her so they could save her. The car, his scent in the car, the address that led him here. She had to have been real and if she was, he needed to save her.  
“Save her…” he whispered to himself in the middle of the hall, the words ringing a distant bell in his mind.  
He glanced over to his left, noticing the tear in the wallpaper that Lydia had left the last time she was here. He got closer, trying to see if he could make out anything in between the cracks of the wallpaper. When he got close, he caught an unfamiliar scent. It was faint but it was there. The scent caused Derek’s mind to spin and his heart to race. The flips his stomach did were enough to confirm that this was Giselle’s scent and whatever was behind that wall held another relic of Giselle.


	49. Chapter 49

I blinked myself out of my daze and found myself sitting on a bench in a train station. I turned my sore neck to the left to find a doctor in her scrubs and coat sitting next to me. In this station my eyes fell on 100s of people who were sitting on a bench and staring off into space. They almost looked like zombies. They stared off into space, almost like statues with the way they didn’t move. No one moved a muscle and it was deafeningly quiet here.  
At the front of the train station held a board of all the towns in Beacon Hills. I turned back to the woman, wondering why she chose to ride the train in her uniform. I raised my hand to tap her on the shoulder only to find that it was full with my keys. I opened my hand to look at them, wondering where the hell I was and why I was at a train station if I had a car. I looked around for a familiar face - Scott, Stiles, Derek, Lydia, Malia, but I found no one that I knew well enough. There were a few people from school that I recognized, but not well enough to go and sit with them.  
“Excuse me,” I whispered to the doctor who turned to me upon my quiet call to her. “Which train station is this?”  
She glanced to the board at the front of the room that held a list of towns with Beacon Hills being four down from the top. “Train station 137,” she answered. The train for Beacon Hills was to arrive on time.  
I don’t even remember getting to the train station - I didn’t even know that Beacon Hills had a train station. “Did you see me come in?” I asked her, but she shook her head. “How the hell did I get here?” I whispered to myself. “How long have you been here?” I asked the doctor.  
“About an hour,” she answered.  
“We got here at the same time,” the man on the other side of the woman told me. He wore a suit and didn’t look up from his newspaper when he talked. “It’s been at least six hours.”  
“Six hours?” I questioned and he nodded. “Where are you going?” I asked the both of them.  
The doctor and the man tried to answer, but they couldn’t answer me. The look on their faces told me that they forgot, but how could they when they travelled all this way to get to the train station? “I had a ticket with me somewhere,” the woman searched through her pockets.  
I searched the room again and found a ticket booth ahead of me. I got up from my seat and rushed over there only to be greeted with a sign that said the clerk would be back in five minutes and a layer of dust on the counter that told me they had been gone for longer than that. “Does anyone work here?” I asked with a shaky breath.  
The PA system squeaked before a man proceeded to tell all of us what stops had been cancelled. In the midst of this, everyone stood up and began to head to the exit of the train station. I tried to ask where this train was going, but no one answered me as their undivided attention lay with the exit that led to the trains. However, when everyone got close to leaving, they all stopped and looked down the dark tunnel. A cool wind blew past all of us, ruffling our clothes and hair before we heard the sound of horses neighing and their hooves clicking against the floor.  
Suddenly, everyone fled from the exit as the sounds of the horses got louder. Everyone made their way to the benches to hide as I stood amongst the few stragglers left behind. When I saw them - the ghost riders - it all came back to me.

_“What are you doing?” Derek demanded.  
“There’s nowhere to go,” I whispered before turning to him with tears in my eyes. His eyes were a mix of confusion and panic, something I know he would forget he ever felt. “I’m going to be taken,” I told him. “So you have to find some way to remember me. It’s the only way you’ll get me back.”  
“No,” he took hold of my hand. “I won’t let them take you.”  
“You have to. We can’t fight them without both of us disappearing. You have to stay here and get the others to remember me so you can save me. You can save me again,” I clutched onto his hand.  
“How am I going to remember you?” he asked me. “If they’re going to make you disappear, how do I do it?”  
“Find something,” I urged. “Like the first night you saved me,” I couldn’t help but smile. “Or the amount of times we couldn’t seem to get the perfect first kiss.” He chuckled as tears filled his eyes. “Like the night I died in your arms - when I told you how beautiful I think you are,” I said. “Remember how beautiful I think you are.”_

I felt myself being pulled away from the ghost riders’ crosshairs and behind a pillar and right in front of me stood Peter Hale.  
“At least it was you instead of your brother,” he rolled his eyes.  
I let my eyes shift as I looked to the pair of ghost riders. “We can take them.” I tried to charge after them but Peter stopped me until the ghost riders left.  
“I don’t think I’ve seen that colour on you,” he mused.  
I ripped his hands off of me as I watched everyone assume their previous positions as if nothing had just happened and right before me, Peter was doing the same. He didn’t realize it either. He didn’t realize that he had been taken by the ghost riders. After asking him how he got here and where he was going, he began to get it. “You _have_ to have tried getting out of here!” I threw my hands up as I paced in front of him. “Have you tried to find some way to leave?”  
“If this is the Wild Hunt, there’s no escape,” Peter informed me. “We’re doomed to ride the storm forever.”  
“Forever!?” I stopped pacing. “ _With_ you!?”  
“Please,” he rolled his eyes. “Don’t make me blush,” he stood up.  
“This is a train station and train stations have exits so we just have to look for one.”  
“This isn’t a train station _Giselle_ and this isn’t real!”  
My eyes narrowed at the man. “What do you mean?”  
“Beacon Hills doesn’t have a train station.”  
“It doesn’t matter,” I shook my head. “If we’re stuck inside somewhere - anywhere - there has to be a way out.”  
I headed to a pair of doors that were chained shut across the room. I grabbed onto the chains and began to pull them apart. Eventually the two snapped and I watched Peter’s eyebrows shoot up. “You’ve gotten stronger,” he paced around me. “And your eyes have changed,” he stopped beside me. “To those of a siren.”  
I rolled my eyes. “That’s not important right now.” I pushed the doors open and walked through them only to find myself entering the train station again from the opposite side. I glanced to the other side of the room to see an equally perplexed Peter. I glanced behind me to see a pair of doors swinging shut. “What the hell was that?” I questioned as I looked between the doors I walked out of to the doors from which I entered the station again.  
“Giselle,” Peter whispered to me, turning to face me completely now. “Over my left shoulder, by the pillar, don’t look.” I slowly let my eyes trail along the floor before I scanned the room, my eyes landing on a pale boy who seemed about my age with rings around his eyes, and curly black hair. He leaned against the pillar staring Peter and I down with folded arms. “I said don’t look,” Peter hissed at me.  
“What else was I supposed to do with your information?” I questioned quietly.  
Peter huffed. “He’s watching us.”  
“He’s the only one who’s not nearly comatose,” I observed.  
“And he seems very interested in what we’re doing.” Peter nodded his head to the side, gesturing me to go check it out.  
I approached the boy and just as I got close, he tried to walk away. I let my eyes shift and I commanded him to stop with my voice and he did. Peter joined me by my side as the boy stood in front of us. “Why are you watching us?” Peter questioned calmly, but dauntingly.  
“You tried the doors,” he smirked. “I’ve tried those before - I’ve tried everything to get out of here.”  
“Well, you haven’t because you’re still here.”  
“I’ve tried almost everything, except for that,” he pointed to the train station exit. “You guys noticed it, but you didn’t try it because you’re scared.”  
Peter scoffed, “ _She_ may be scared,” he looked over at me and I gave him a dirty look at his comment and just his presence overall. “but _I’m_ not scared.” The three of us headed over to the exit but stopped behind Peter when he didn’t go any further into the tunnel. “Push me,” he said to me.  
“Gladly,” I smirked. I raised my foot and kicked his back, sending him onto the floor and pass the threshold of the tunnel.  
“I said push,” Peter got off of the ground. “Not kick.”  
“I pushed with my foot,” I replied before following him into the tunnel.  
The three of us eventually came to a train track that headed further down the corridor as the elevated platforms stood taller than us from our spot on the tracks. When we heard the horses, the three of us jumped onto the elevated platform off of the tracks. We watched them enter the train station again from our hiding spots behind the pillars.   
“How do we get out of here!?” I called to the boy once they were gone.  
“We jump!”  
“ _We_ are not jumping,” Peter gestured to himself and I. “But _you_ should definitely give it a shot.”  
“They’re coming,” he huffed. “Are you with me or not?” the boy asked.  
“This is all you,” Peter gave him a thumbs up as the sound of the horses got louder.  
I watched as the ghost riders passed by on their horses and when I tried to stop the boy from jumping, Peter simply pulled me back, telling me to let the boy try. However when he jumped onto the horse behind one of the ghost riders and they got to the invisible field that they appeared from in the first place - which was probably the separation between our world and this place - the ghost riders went through but the boy had been rejected by the field that lit up green upon their passing through it, it’s only proof that it even existed in the first place. I watched as he writhed around in pain on the ground before completely disintegrating. I ripped myself out of Peter’s hold and ran down to the tracks to find no trace of the boy anymore. There weren’t even remains of his body. “You knew he’d die.”  
“I didn’t,” Peter jumped down and sauntered towards me as if he hadn’t just witnessed someone lose their life. “But now we know that we’re stuck and there’s no chance of us getting out of here, because this was our only way out.”  
“What if it’s another illusion?” I suggested. “Like how this whole place is an illusion?”  
“What is with you teenagers thinking that you are so special that the rules don’t apply to you? Don’t you get it?” he spat. “We don’t exist anymore and no one is going to be looking for us.”  
“That might be true for you, but not for me,” I shook my head. “Someone’s going to find me because someone’s going to be looking for me. But they’re not going to be looking for you.”  
Peter chuckled. “Do you think that you’re that special? There’s no way that anyone could forget you,” he faked sympathy before snatching my keys out of my hand. “These,” he held them up. “Mean nothing!” he yelled as he launched them away from us and onto the elevated platform. Without a second thought, I let my fist collide with Peter’s face which sent him stumbling back. “Who do you think’s going to be looking for you, Giselle? When the ghost riders are meant to erase our existence from reality?”  
“Scott, Stiles, Lydia, Malia-“  
“Derek?” he smirked, the blood trickling down his lip.

_“I swear, I won’t let anything get in the way of us again, but you have to stay alive,” he pleaded as our faces were inches apart. “Not Braeden, not Peter.”  
“Peter?” I questioned, not expecting to hear him come up in this conversation.  
“He…” his eyes left mine. “He said…” Derek’s voice began to fade out as the weight of my eyes shut themselves for me. “Giselle!” he shook me awake. “You have to stay awake.”_

Rage filled up inside me as I stomped over and hit Peter across the face again, sending him to the ground this time. “What did you say?” I demanded as I grabbed him by his collar. “What did you say to Derek?”  
“I told him the truth Giselle,” he panted. “I told him that he shouldn’t be with you - a teenager,” he sneered.  
“You ruined it,” I pushed him to the ground, making sure his head slammed against the track. “Every shot that we had, you ruined it.”  
“I was helping-“  
“How?” I demanded.  
“It didn’t exactly send a warm feeling through my heart to see my nephew falling in love with a teenager,” Peter stood up.  
“You had no right,” I shook my head, tears filling my eyes. “You had no right and because of everything that you said and everything that you did, we didn’t get a chance and now that you and I are stuck in this stupid train station, we’re never going to have a chance!” I screamed. I took in a breath to try and calm myself down, but nothing could put out this surge of anger that caused me to shake all over. “When whoever it is comes to save me, I hope you rot in here,” I whispered before heading back to the waiting area.

I sat on the bench, trying to think of ways to get myself out of here. I knew I couldn’t wait for the others to find me without me trying to find them first. I couldn’t get out and I couldn’t send anything out to them in any way. I couldn’t try and get out either because I’d probably end up disintegrating just like that boy did. I let out a huff as my head fell back against the seat when the PA system went on, announcing the same thing that it had been all day. Then, my eyes landed on some wires held up and attached to the ceiling. My eyes followed it as it connected to the PA speaker and the wires led behind a door. I got up from my seat and rushed over to the door.  
“Intercom,” Peter sighed from behind me and I turned to see him leaning against a pillar with his arms folded. “Maybe radio.”   
“Radio waves,” it hit me. If I somehow figured out how to hook up the wires in there to get through a supernatural channel and somewhere where Lydia could hear it using her banshee powers, I would have a chance at helping them or at least reminding them who I was.  
I got into the room, Peter following close behind and as I looked through the different wires, I tried to block out his pessimistic comments. A loud screeching sound that came from the system caused Peter and I to clamp onto our ears before he turned the knob that he touched before to turn off the sound. I sent him a deadly glare at the fact that he just possibly blew our cover. I played with certain wires, plugs, knobs, and dials, but I didn’t know what was working and what wasn’t working.  
“Take your time,” Peter said sarcastically, leaning against the desk full of dials, controls, and wires, continuing to not help me at all. “It’s merely our existence at stake.”  
“Shut up,” I demanded as I spun around on the chair to look around for something that I hadn’t touched or tried to work.. “I don’t do wires - I don’t do technology, I’m not Stiles,” I rubbed my forehead that held a piercing headache behind it.  
“Get up,” Peter instructed.  
“What?” I asked, confused.  
“Now,” he pulled me out of my seat. “Get up now.” He dragged me out of the room before pulling me behind a pillar just in time for the ghost rider’s arrival. I watched as one of them stopped in front of the room we were just in. He got off of his horse and approached the door, his boots clicking against the linoleum floor. With the same boot, he kicked the door in, inspecting the room. When he found nothing, he took his horse and left with his partner.  
“I can’t do this,” I muttered. “I don't know what I’m supposed to do with all those wires in there.”  
“Then I guess, we just have to give up,” Peter decided before clasping his hands behind his back and sauntering off to his seat. His attitude perplexed me to an extent. Sure, he hadn’t had much waiting for him on the other side, but I assumed someone like him would have a bit more fight in him. I shook my head, clearing these useless thoughts and trying to focus on a way to save myself and these other people.

What felt like an hour later, the ghost riders returned, sending all of us to cower behind the architecture and furniture in the room. They used their guns to shoot around the room at any target that ran across the room as I watched them dropped one girl onto the floor who was wearing lacrosse gear. I instantly recognized her as Gwen, she played on the lacrosse team and her sister was here and one of the first people I recognized in here. When they reunited, the ghost riders continued to wreak havoc on the station.  
“This isn’t a train station,” Peter said from beside me as we crouched behind a bench. “It’s a _way_ station. This is a stopping point on their journey through the world - they’re not going to leave.” I watched him sigh and rub his forehead. “They’re not going to stop - we have to get out of here because they’re not going to stop until every single person that you love and know in Beacon Hills goes out of existence.” Before I could stop him, Peter took off towards the exit and I had no choice but to follow him.  
“We have to get out through the portal,” Peter told me.  
“N-no, nobody survives when they go through there,” I pointed ahead of us.  
“No _human_ survives,” he turned to me. “ _We_ are not human. We can heal,” he continued on his way closer to the portal.  
“I don’t heal like you do,” I informed him. “It takes longer for me to heal so I don’t know if I’ll heal before I die.”  
“Natural selection at its finest, I presume,” he smirked before turning towards the portal.  
I grabbed Peter’s arm and spun him around roughly to face me. “You have to tell them - Scott, Stiles, Lydia, Malia, Derek - tell them I’m alive because they’re not going to remember me!”  
“ _When_ I get out of here, I am going to get into my car and drive as far away from Beacon Hills as possible. _If_ I see your friends on the way, then I _might_ mention you,” he turned to walk away.  
“So you’re not even going to say goodbye to your nephew - the one you felt an _overwhelming need_ to protect?” I called after him, but he kept walking. “Not even your _daughter_?” This made him stop. “You’re not going to say goodbye to Malia?” Peter spun around to me and huffed. “I know that there has to be at least a sliver of you that wants to so desperately get out for Malia and that’s okay. But you know it won’t be okay if you leave without saying anything to her.”  
Before Peter could respond, the sound of horses was heard again, a sound I was starting to get exhausted of hearing. “Giselle.” I spun around to him. “Stall.”  
My eyes went wide. “How am I supposed to stall?”  
“Think of something,” he prompted. “Think like Stiles - Be like Stiles.”  
Before I could debate, he jumped up onto the platform and I scrambled up onto it as well. I looked around trying to figure out some way to stop them when my eyes landed on the bench beside me. I pushed it off of the ledge and sent it tumbling into the path of the ghost riders. When the horses took their time getting around it, Peter took the chance to jump on. I watched as he held on while the ghost rider tried to shake him off and when they got to the portal, I watched as Peter went through along with the ghost riders effortlessly.


	50. Chapter 50

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kf02c_Hz3Ig

In the calm night, Derek, Lydia, Scott, Stiles, and Malia all slept in the punch buggy, exhausted from trying to piece together information and ways to try and find Giselle. The pained howl that erupted from Peter Hale and into the quiet night startled the group and sent them all scrambling out of the car.  
“What the hell was that?” Stiles demanded.  
“A werewolf,” Scott answered.  
“It sounded familiar,” Malia said and Derek nodded, agreeing with her.  
“Go!” Lydia prompted the werewolves, leaving her and Stiles behind.  
The three split up in the woods and while they had trouble, they eventually found Peter but didn’t remember who he was. His body had been burnt to a crisp as he laid on the ground, panting and groaning out in pain from the portal’s attempt at rejecting the passing through of someone who was not a ghost rider. Nevertheless, his appearance didn’t matter as the Wild Hunt had taken a toll on not only everyone’s memories of Giselle, but also, everyone’s memories of Peter.  
“Who is that?” Scott asked as the three knelt down next to the figure.  
“I don’t know but the scent is familiar,” Derek answered as they saw the burnt man lying on the ground before them.  
“He still has a heartbeat,” Malia confirmed, using her heightened hearing. Suddenly, the man’s blue eyes sprung open and Malia and Derek knelt down before the man. “Oh my God,” she breathed. Memories of Peter flooded her mind at an alarming rate. Slowly learning who he was, seeing him for the first time after hearing Stiles and Scott speak about him, and finding out that he was her real father.  
“Peter,” Derek named as memories of them when they were younger flooded into his mind. Before his eyes, Derek watched Peter go from someone who was his most closest confidant to someone who he couldn’t stand after finding out that he had murdered his sister to become an alpha.  
“Who’s Peter?” Scott questioned, looking to Derek.  
“Peter Hale. My uncle.”  
“And my dad,” Malia added.  
Suddenly, memories of the man flooded back to Scott. The night he had been bitten by Peter - something that changed his life forever, the constant back and forth between wondering if Peter was really on their side or not, and finally the duel they had found themselves in in Mexico when everyone came to rescue him and Kira. The power hungry man decided to take another stab at stealing the true alpha’s power, but he hadn’t succeeded. The three of them began to heal him before noticing the ring keys clutched in his hand. Derek took them in his hand as he realized that these were just what they needed right now. Without a second thought, Derek took off running towards the car. “It was Peter!” he called to Stiles and Lydia when he was in the parking lot. “He has the keys!” he jumped into the driver’s seat.  
“Whoa, what!?” Stiles sprung forward in the backseat.  
“He has the keys to this thing - that means that Giselle is alive and real!” Derek tried starting the car but the engine wouldn’t budge. “Come on!” he yelled, slamming his hands against the steering wheel before turning the key again. He pumped the gas with his foot and continued turning the key until the car started up and the headlights shone before them. The three of them were shocked and grinned at each other in excitement which soon died down when they realized they didn’t know what to do with this car now. Suddenly, the radio emitted a high-pitched screeching and when Stiles reached over to turn down the volume, Lydia grabbed his hand to stop him. “Wait,” she whispered, leaning her head closer to the speaker and turning up the volume.  
Derek and Stiles’s faces lit up as they heard the faintest voice among the static. “Hello,” it spoke. “Is anyone there? Can anyone hear me?” Derek’s heart picked up in pace as he recognized the voice. It was the same one that kept repeating itself in his head ever since they realized Giselle was missing.  
“Do you guys hear that?” Lydia asked.  
“Yeah,” Stiles grinned. “For once, we do.”  
“How do we talk back!?” Derek demanded, looking around for some way to communicate with the girl that had been keeping him up all night.  
Stiles flew out of the back seat and sprinted to his car that was only a few feet away to get the police scanner he had in his jeep. After hooking it up to the radio, Stiles took hold of the microphone. “Giselle!” he called. “Giselle, are you there!?” His pulse hammered in his ears as he struggled to gain control of his erratic breathing. It almost felt like a dream to hear the voice of the girl that he wasn’t completely sure existed. The girl who was his sister. His twin sister.  
“Stiles!” the voice called back. “Stiles it’s me - d-do you remember me!?”  
The three of them collectively sighed as tears welled up in all of their eyes. “Oh my God, Giselle,” Stiles grinned.  
“Do you know me?” Giselle asked, her tone turning serious. “Do you remember me?”  
“Giselle,” Derek ripped the microphone out of Stiles’s hand when he paused, not knowing if he could answer honestly or not. “Is that you - i-is that really you?”  
“Derek,” her voice quivered. “D-Derek. Do you remember? Do you remember the last thing I said?”  
Hearing her sweet, velvety voice call his name and being in the car triggered something in Derek. 

_“How am I going to remember you?” Derek asked her desperately. “If they’re going to make you disappear, how do I do it?”  
“Find something,” Giselle’s voice urged. “Like the first night you saved me,” it was evident in her voice that she was smiling. “Or the amount of times we couldn’t seem to get the perfect first kiss.” This made Derek chuckle. “Like the night I died in your arms - when I told you how beautiful I think you are,” she said. “Remember how beautiful I think you are.”_

Derek glanced to Lydia and Stiles. “I remember,” he said quietly. “I-I remember.” Feeling this was a private moment, but knowing he couldn’t kick Lydia and Stiles out of the car, Derek spoke lowly. “You said remember how beautiful you think I am.”  
“Giselle, are you okay?” Lydia called after a pause from the other side.  
“We’re coming to get you!” Stiles added.  
“N-no,” Giselle’s voice was hoarse. “You won’t be able to find me.”  
“What are you talking about?” Stiles grabbed the microphone. “We’re going to find you!”  
“No Mischief, listen to me, you have to find Canaan. Find Canaan!” she demanded before the line went dead, leaving the three of them to call out for any response from Giselle, but coming up dry.  
“How did you remember?” Stiles asked Derek.  
“This is where they took her. It was bothering me all night - I couldn’t remember what she told me to remember. Then I heard her voice and I heard it clearly in my head.”

The five of them headed out to Canaan, however they had trouble locating it. The town barely showed up on any recent maps, but when they arrived, they understood why. Canaan was an abandoned town. The streets were quiet and empty. The homes were run down and abandoned. It was evident that nobody lived there. Old streamers hung from trees, signalling a party had happened, but how long ago it occurred was a mystery. Before they could announce that this was abandoned for sure, a lady, Lenore and her son, Caleb made their presence known. At the excitement of visitors in Canaan, the lady invited Scott, Stiles, Derek, Lydia, and Malia in for some drinks. However her sweet demeanour turned sour when the topic of this empty town came up. “People have been leaving Canaan for years,” Lenore said. “April, 8, 1987 is just the day that the last of them left.”  
“All at once?” Scott questioned.  
“They all just disappeared?” Derek wondered.  
Lenore turned her head to look at Derek. “I didn’t say that they disappeared. I said that they left,” her tone was sharp.  
“We didn’t mean to upset you,” Lydia said, deciding that it was a bad idea to have come here. “We’ll just be going now.” When they tried to do just that, the door had slammed shut and no amount of werewolf strength could open the door or break the windows. “Why didn’t you leave too?” Lydia questioned Lenore with Stiles by her side once Scott, Malia, and Derek were sent downstairs to keep Caleb company.  
“What’s that supposed to mean? Is that an accusation? Are you accusing me of something?” Lenore fired.  
“How come you’re the only one left?” Stiles asked cautiously. “Did you hide? Did you fight them?”  
“Fight who!?”  
“They’re called the ghost riders,” Lydia answered. “They ride the storm and they take people. But why didn’t they take you?”  
“I don’t know!” Lenore cried. “They took everyone! But they didn’t take me!” she cried and let out a banshee scream that sent Lydia and Stiles flying across the room until they hit the wall.  
When Lydia shook off the pain that was seering in her back. She saw the town in a dream she had before coming here. The last residential area was having a small get together where the ghost riders wasted no time in ridding the rest of the town of people. However, when they found Lenore, they left her alone, almost afraid to do anything to her. “You’re a banshee,” Lydia smirked as she pulled herself up and off of the ground. “They were scared of you. They left you alone, because they were scared of you.”  
“They’ll be scared of you too,” Lenore replied. “You’ll be safe, they’ll take everyone else.”  
“I don’t want to be safe,” Lydia shook her head. “I want to find Giselle.”  
“You can’t stop it,” Lenore warned her. “There’s no stopping the ghost riders.”  
“We have to,” Stiles pleaded. “We have to save Giselle.” Stiles could hardly believe that she was real. While he wasn’t 100 percent convinced, lately Stiles had been up at night wondering what it would be like to have a twin. Hearing her voice and her knowing who she was, it was almost surreal to realize that a member of her family was missing and he didn’t even know it. He desperately wanted to remember how similar they looked to each other, how close they were, and who she was as a person, but he just couldn’t.

“So that was completely pointless,” Derek sighed, feeling frustrated on the way home. In the basement with Lenore’s son Caleb, they realized that Caleb was actually dead and Lenore had conjured him up to fill the void of losing everyone in the town that now only she resided. Giselle had sent them to this town and Lenore hadn’t given them any ways to stop the Wild Hunt. The more days that went by, the less sleep Derek got, and the more aggravated he became. Ever since he heard her voice, he had been replaying the way she said his name in his head. They were so close to finding her that they couldn’t give up now.  
“Maybe it was a warning,” Scott said. “A warning from Giselle about what Beacon Hills could become.”  
“How would she know? She didn’t even know where the place was, she just told us to find it,” Stiles stared out the window of the car.  
“Whatever she sent us here for, we need to get them to leave now,” Malia decided.  
When they arrived at Scott’s house, Scott, Malia, and Lydia found Theo waiting with Hayden and Liam in his kitchen, but before they could tear him to shreds for having a whole pack against them, Liam told Scott that Theo remembered Giselle. While their interactions were brief as he formed his pack of chimeras, it was enough for Theo to ask about her among asking for Scott or Stiles. Since he had been sent to live with the skinwalkers once the pack defeated him, he knew nothing about what was happening in Beacon Hills and with the ghost riders which served as a catalyst for his memory of Giselle. He also held more information about the ghost riders which made it hard to send him back to the skinwalkers. At this point, they were helpless and desperate times call for desperate measures.

After saying goodnight to his wife and to his son, Noah had gotten up from the table in the living room and began to head over to his bedroom, but the torn wallpaper couldn’t help but catch his eye. Claudia had told him about the day Lydia almost tore it off of the wall completely. He trusted Lydia, not just because of her supernatural abilities, but because he knew she was a rational person. Noah’s eyes locked onto the flap of wallpaper before his fingers enveloped it. Slowly, he ripped the wallpaper further, creating an even bigger gap and eventually tore through the now naked wall to reveal a door on the other side.  
Hesitantly, Noah grabbed onto the handle, twisted it, and pushed the door open. The faintest bit of light broke in through the window that was partially covered by the panels of the roof. The room was empty, cold, and dusty. Noah couldn’t believe his eyes at the fact that there was a door on the other side of this wall.  
“Giselle,” he whispered as he looked around the empty room. He tried out the name for the first time and it sounded right.  
“Noah!” Claudia scolded quietly, hoping not to wake their son. “Get out of there!”  
He turned to find his wife in her pyjamas with a sleepy look in her eyes and a scowl on her face. “Did you know that this was here?” he asked her.  
“No,” she huffed. “Maybe it was something that the previous owners did.”  
“What if this was her room?” Noah approached his wife. He couldn’t help but feel excited at the idea that they had a daughter - the daughter that never came. “What if this is the proof that we’ve been looking for?”  
Claudia rolled her eyes. “There are a lot of explanations as to why this room is here, but having a daughter that we forgot about isn’t one of them. You have to let this go.”  
Noah looked around again, his heartstrings pulled at the thought of letting all of this go. “I don’t think that I can,” he concluded when he realized just how attached he had become to all of this. “Aren’t you curious?”  
“No,” she said firmly. “I’m not. Now clean this up before Stiles sees it and you make him crazy too.”  
However, Noah did the opposite. Walking over to one of the windows, he opened it, and used his fist to punch out the panels that blocked the window. Once they were gone, Noah looked out the window and found Derek standing under it and looking up at him in astonishment.  
“Yo, daddio-“ Stiles called, breaking Noah’s gaze from Derek’s. Stiles stopped short once he realized where his father was standing. “Dad,” his voice became meek as he looked around the room and stepped into it. He realized that this was another piece of evidence that Giselle really existed and he almost couldn’t believe what he was seeing.  
Using the tree next to the window to get onto the roof, Derek climbed in through the window and stood, taking in the empty room. Seeing the new space that Noah made for the window gave Derek a sense of relief, knowing that the details of the roof were finally complete. It made sense now, why he stayed where he did each night. It was Giselle’s room which meant that he had to have come by here often when she was still here.  
“It had to have been her room,” Noah concluded. “It has to be another relic.”  
Derek sauntered around the room, letting his fingertips run around the walls, trying to confirm that where he was standing was real and another sign of Giselle’s existence. When he got to the door he stopped suddenly, bracing himself for something that never happened. Derek looked down to the ground at his feet. “It’s empty,” he muttered before turning to Stiles. “Call Lydia,” he demanded.  
Within the next 15 minutes, Lydia had arrived as Stiles was consoling his furious mother. Slowly, Lydia entered the room, absorbing the scene in front of her as Derek and Noah watched her. She watched furniture and details of the room come together. She glanced over to the two men and Derek’s expression confirmed that he saw the same thing she did. Giselle’s bed, her desk filled with folders and highlighters, the posters up along the walls, the dresser she had in the corner of the room. “It’s all here,” Lydia whispered.  
“Everything but her,” Derek replied.  
“Hey, what is it?” Noah stepped closer to her and noticed her glassy eyes.  
Lydia and Derek looked to Noah before doing a double take to find the room empty again, their joy deflating quickly. “Nothing,” the girl answered.  
“I don’t understand how you knew this was here,” Noah said. “But if you two want to discuss the possibility that I had a daughter, I’m listening.”  
Derek and Lydia were filled with relief but they didn’t know where to start. Lydia decided to speak about Lenore and Caleb, the son she had resurrected. “She brought him back to life to fill the void of everyone in Canaan disappearing.”  
“You saw this kid?” Noah questioned.  
“We all did,” Derek confirmed.  
“But,” Lydia sighed. “She was there when everyone was taken and she saw it but she didn’t want to believe it. She wanted to believe in her son,” she spoke suggestively.  
Noah’s eyes narrowed as he began to catch onto what Lydia was trying to say. “What are you trying to say? Are you trying to say I’m doing that with Claudia?” Derek and Lydia looked between each other, unsure of what to say. “She is a flesh and blood woman!” he pointed towards the door that she was outside of. “She is real! Everything else here is speculation - it’s a theory based on a ghost town!” His belief in this group of people was diminishing fast at the offence.  
“Sheriff,” Derek sighed, not wanting to lose the progress they made with him. “This can’t just be speculation. All of these things that have happened - the letter in the car with your address on it, this room, the name you yelled when you tripped over a pair of shoes - it can’t be.”  
“Derek,” Noah held his hand out. “I know that you may think you were in love with this girl, but this-this is insanity.”  
“Three’s a pattern.”  
Before Noah could respond, Lydia walked past him and Derek. When Derek saw the direction she was heading in, she found a chair holding a bag that had to belong to Giselle. Lydia raised it in her hands and turned to Derek. “Try and catch a scent,” she told him before tossing him the bag.  
Derek brought the deep purple coloured bag up to his nose and let the smells and aromas that were embedded into it seep into his nose. “It’s her scent,” he confirmed as he opened his eyes. “It has to be. It was like when Malia, Scott, and I found Peter in the woods. Malia and I knew the scent was familiar, but we couldn’t pinpoint it,” he said to Lydia. “This has to be her scent.”  
Lydia’s eyes showed the relief that they were getting somewhere, but it was all lost when she looked to Noah’s concerned face. “You don’t see it?”  
He eyed them carefully, failing to see the things Lydia and Derek did. “I see two deeply disturbed people,” Noah answered.  
“You’re afraid to remember her, because you’re afraid to know what it means. It means that Claudia isn’t real,” Derek said. “But Giselle is.”  
“Why do you care so much if I remember her?” Noah asked Derek.  
“Because you loved her,” he answered. “And I loved her too,” he finished before tossing the bag over to Noah. In the moment between the bag leaving Derek’s hands and landing into Noah’s, it had become something tangible to the Sheriff, adding to the evidence that Giselle was in fact real.

With the rest of the pack, Theo had managed to trap a ghost rider into a cell where it couldn’t use electricity to get away from them. However their plan backfired when Parrish’s powers took over and tried to free the ghost rider. The two had been able to communicate at the party they showed up at, but while Mason attributed the ghost rider’s fleeing to fear of the hellhound, he soon realized that the two were communicating.  
When the ghost rider called out into the night from his captivity, Parrish had shown up and tried to get the ghost rider out. However, the pack was faced with another problem when they realized Mr. Douglas, the chemistry teacher at school, had been controlling the ghost riders and using them for his own good. He had gotten away but not before harming Theo and killing the ghost rider.

Stiles told them what had happened at home after Lydia and Derek explained everything to him. While he reacted the same way his father did when he was told that Claudia was just filling a void, he soon realized that if she was there to fill a void, that his mother wasn’t really his mother. Just a figment of his subconscious that’s helping him deal with the loss of his sister, and a figment of the ghost riders to ensure that he and his father didn’t remember Giselle. “That still doesn’t answer the question,” Stiles said to Lydia and Derek as they stood outside of the hole in the wall. “How do we get Giselle back?”  
“Malia is working on that,” Derek said. “She took Peter to the hospital after we found him and she’s trying to get him to help us. He said there’s some sort of portal that appears between the worlds which is how the ghost riders can travel.”  
“How do we open the portal ourselves?” Lydia asked.  
Stiles’s eyes were transfixed on a light coming from inside the room. In the corner of it, it was a bright white light that only appeared for a few seconds before collapsing in on itself. “I think I know how.”


	51. Chapter 51

Noah Stilinski found himself back in the room early the next morning. His wife had become fed up, the night before, with trying to tear him away from the room and her anger only increased when Stiles had gotten a fair look into the room and saw what Derek and Lydia had seen. The sight brought him to tears, so much that he was trying to get a hold of Scott and Malia to try and explain what he had just seen.  
The bookshelf that wasn’t visible to Noah before was now fully tangible. He let his calloused fingers run along the edge of the shelf, his mind racing with questions of what Giselle liked to read - did she like romance novels, adventure books, graphic novels, or maybe a little bit of everything? Were there other things on the shelf like photographs? Little bits and bobs? As he made his way back to the starting point, he noticed a stack of papers sitting next to multiple transparent folders that had an abundance of highlighters sitting beside it. Hesitantly, Noah reached out for them. He didn’t know whether these were tangible items or just figments of his imagination. When he was able to grasp them in his hand, he turned to exit the room to sort through the papers, hoping they’d give some clue as to who Giselle really was and how they could help her. Noah stopped in his tracks at the sight of a black computer desk with a chair to go with it now sat a few feet from the door.  
The room was slowly starting to come together the more that Noah began to believe - the way it came together for Derek and Lydia when they believed. He put the papers and stationary down onto the table and flipped open the folders that each took on one colour of the rainbow. Inside, there were stickers on each pocket of each folder. One of the labels read facts while the other read solutions. Noah pulled the cap apart from the highlighter and began to read each piece of information, highlighting as he went along. Information about werewolves, the kanima, the bank that Cora and Boyd had gotten themselves stuck in, and the nogitsune.  
When the desk began to run out of space to harbour all of the loose pieces of paper, Noah decided to spread them out all along the floor which was also running out of space upon the appearance of a bed dressed with a white comforter. The sight made Noah elated and only made him work faster to read through, highlight, and sort out all of the papers into their respective folders. With each page he sorted into a folder and with each highlight stroke, the room began to regain the qualities it had that defined it as Giselle’s room.  
As the Sheriff placed the last piece of paper into the last opened folder, he slowly stood up and spun around to look at the room that was now riddled with relics of Giselle. The walls that were stained lavender, the comfy, neatly made bed, alongside her equally neat desk, and the bookshelf that was filled with books and photographs. Noah’s heart swelled at the sight around him. He and Claudia had a real daughter and Stiles had a sister - one that needed saving. It felt as though the wind had gotten knocked out of him and tears streamed down his face. He let out a sob as an elated grin formed. All of her birthdays, all of her graduations, what her voice sounded like, her passion for medicine, and other characteristics of Giselle flooded into his mind at an overwhelming pace. The daughter whom he loved more than life itself, the daughter he would go to any length to protect, and the daughter who made their little family complete was growing up in his mind all over again up until the point that she was taken. How could he ever forget Giselle? The beautiful, intelligent woman that mirrored her mother in so many ways.  
“I remember,” he cried to himself, rushing over to the bookshelf that was scattered with photographs.  
His eyes immediately found the photograph of a younger Stiles and a younger Giselle sitting next to their mother who was in a hospital bed. Claudia looked weak with an IV in her arm and a breathing tube inserted into her nose. Stiles and Giselle wore fake smiles that seemed like they were going to break the second the photograph was done being taken. This had to have been before Claudia got better.  
“Claudia,” he whispered before rushing out of the room and shutting the door behind him.

Stiles, Lydia, and Derek explained what they saw in Giselle’s bedroom to Scott, Liam, and Malia in the now deserted police station that afternoon. The ghost riders had nearly cleared out Beacon Hills of many people and the more people they took, the lower the chances of Scott, Malia, Lydia, Derek, and Stiles had of saving Giselle. They all decided that it had something to do with the rift and with the Sheriff remembering Giselle.  
“So does that mean if we remember her enough, we can open a rift?” Malia suggested and Stiles nodded.  
“But how do we remember someone who’s been erased from our memory?” Stiles asked.  
“Our subconscious,” Lydia answered. “If we can’t remember it consciously, we have to go into our subconscious.”  
“We tried that already,” Derek groaned. “When Deaton told us to go to sleep - we did, we saw something, but it barely worked.”  
“Then maybe we need to dig deeper.”  
“How do we still know there’s another rift even open?” Scott questioned. “We tried to get into the last rift - the one that Peter came from. How do we know that’s not the last one?”  
“Because not everyone has been taken yet,” Stiles reminded him. “If the Wild Hunt was moving on, the only person that should be here is Lydia, the way Lorraine was the only one left in Canaan.”  
“It was scared of Lydia,” Liam provided. “The ghost rider,” he clarified. “When we went looking for the rift and Mr. Douglas found us, we ran into one of them,” he pointed between himself, Stiles, and the redhead. “It put its gun down and it just let us walk past.”  
“I don’t think it was afraid,” Lydia shook her head. “It was more like…reverence.”  
Liam discovered that Mr. Douglas, the science teacher at Beacon Hills High, had been trying to gain control of the Wild Hunt for centuries now. He was a Löwenmensch - part wolf, part lion. He had made his way through many centuries and many wars, including the second world war, where he first encountered the ghost riders. He used them to fight people and armies opposing the Nazis, which he was apart of.   
When they all found the rift, Mr. Douglas used Parrish in his hellhound state to open the rift for him, seeing as how he would be the only person who wouldn’t be burnt by coming in contact with the rift. He didn’t do it intentionally, it was just a matter of him having little control over his powers. Mr. Douglas unleashed the ghost riders on the six of them in attempts to kill them. While they were still alive, they were still stuck with the next course of action to take.

Noah flicked the lights on in his bedroom that he shared with his wife, startling Claudia from her slumber. “Noah, what are you doing?” she groaned.  
“Honey, you need to come see this,” he pulled the covers off of his wife. He was trying to speed up the process of getting her to the room in fear that everything would be gone when he returned with her.  
“Okay, okay,” Claudia sighed as he forced herself up and out of bed. He grabbed onto her hand and guided her down the hallway, almost like a child in a toy store.“Why can’t this wait until later?” she whined as she rubbed the sleep out of her eye.  
“Listen, I don’t know how it happened, but it happened,” Noah grinned to her as they stopped right outside the door. “Everything Lydia and Derek have been trying to tell us is true!” he twisted the door handle and pushed the door open, revealing the now complete bedroom. He looked at his wife with excitement in his eyes only to find a perplexed expression on hers. When Noah entered the room, he began to point out all of the things that sat in the room while Claudia stood outside of it, not seeing what her husband saw.  
“Her gun,” he pulled it out of the bag that had been tossed to him earlier. “I remember teaching her how to shoot, but she didn’t even need that much practice - she was a natural!” he grinned before placing the gun back where he found it. “Claudia, we have a daughter,” he relished in the fact. “The doctor didn’t read the scan wrong - we have a daughter, and Stiles has a twin sister.”  
Claudia couldn’t meet her husband’s joy as she couldn’t see what he was looking at, pointing out, or gesturing to. “I don’t see anything,” she told him remorsefully.  
Noah let out a sigh, desperately searching for a way to get her to believe like he did. “You’ve got to come in the room, baby,” he held his hand out to her as he stepped closer to the door.  
Claudia decided to comply with her husband and take his hand. However, when she stepped into the room, she still came to the same conclusion of not seeing what the Sheriff saw. When he searched the room again to find some way to get her to see the details of the room, he found the room back to the state that he found it. Empty, cold, and impersonal. This perplexed Noah as all of the supernatural cases in this town seemed to do, because they didn’t seem to follow any rules. If Claudia stepped into the room, she had to have seen something in here like he eventually did. Suddenly, he almost didn’t want to acknowledge what was right in front of him.   
Lydia’s theory about Claudia filling a void and taking the place of Giselle now that she wasn’t here had to have been playing some role in this. If this was Giselle’s room, that meant that she lived here - it meant she was alive. If this meant she was alive, then that meant that Claudia was not. Claudia was a mechanism used by the ghost riders to enforce the idea that Giselle never existed and if that was the plan, there was no way Claudia would ever be able to see this because if she did, then that revealed that Giselle was real.  
“Noah,” Claudia’s soft voice spoke again as he dropped her hand. “There’s nothing in here.”  
Noah turned to the woman, not being able to truly identify her as his wife anymore. “But you are.”   
Tears formed in the Sheriff’s eyes at the realization that it was either Claudia or Giselle. He let logic prevail, reminding himself that while Claudia was physically real, she was only an idea forged to ensure that any memory of Giselle was lost. If it was really Giselle who was supposed to be here, then that’s the way it had to be. He soon began to realize that if Claudia was just a mechanism that the ghost riders used to hide Giselle’s existence, then it meant that everything he had been feeling up until now with Claudia wasn’t real. A huge portion of their relationship that he believed they experienced, wasn’t real.  
“I don’t remember your birthday last year,” he spoke quietly. “Or what we did for the holidays, or our anniversary. I don’t even know how many years we…” he trailed off, becoming aware of just how little he remembered of his relationship with Claudia.  
“Noah, you’re being ridiculous, we went to Big Sur!” she chuckled.  
“No,” he immediately shook his head. “We wanted to go there,” he corrected. “But we never did.” He couldn’t meet Claudia’s eyes, but his eyes fell on the photo that caught his attention earlier.  
“But we did! I remember!” Claudia protested as Noah picked up the photograph from the bookshelf.  
“No,” he held the photo out to her. “I took that photo of you, Stiles, and Giselle in the hospital on your last good day,” he spoke lowly, unable to force himself to speak any louder in fear that it was release a wave of tears. “The kids refused to leave your side.”  
“I was sick,” Claudia insisted. “But then I got better.”  
Noah continued to relive the day that was captured in that one photograph while Claudia kept insisting that the medication had worked, and that she was alive and well. How much Stiles and Giselle kept talking to Claudia, how grateful he was that Claudia was back to herself, the moments he shared with her when the kids fell asleep. Noah didn’t dare to look up from the picture as he kept relaying the day - every last bit of it - before it ended with Claudia never having a good day again. It was a day he would never forget - for good and bad reasons, but mainly he tried to focus on the good.  
When Claudia had stopped fighting Noah’s story, he looked up to notice that she had disappeared, and the room had returned back to the way he had wanted her to see it. The moment was bittersweet, almost like the day he was referring to. He was one step closer to getting his daughter back, but he was having his wife taken away from him all over again. The pain of losing his wife for a second time made Noah cry out in despair, but the idea of getting Giselle back settled his pain, however the effect was only minimal. He gripped onto the photograph tightly as he tried to settle his emotions. He had dealt with the loss of his wife before, so he could do it again. Even then, he wasn’t really losing his wife. The woman that once stood before him was made up. Regardless, Noah couldn’t deny the hurt that still prevailed.  
Through his blurred eyes, he found sudden beams of a bright white light that cascaded out behind him. He turned his head and immediately shielded his eyes from the intensity of the light. Noah cautiously lowered his hand as he watched the light quickly die out into nothing, but he what he found in it sent him heading right out of the house to find Scott, Stiles, and the others.

The others were at Scott’s house, coming up at a dead end when they tried to figure out their next course of action. Almost everyone in Beacon Hills had been taken except for them and the last open rift shut right before them as Mr. Douglas and Parrish walked right through it. Liam, Lydia, and Malia took their seats at all corners of the room as Scott and Derek sat at the dinner table. The house was quiet, allowing the only sound to come from Scott’s phone. He had been trying to call his mother multiple times, but when the automated message relayed that the number had been disconnected, Scott realized that his mother had been taken too.  
Stiles paced around the room, beginning to feel the tense in his chest and his throat close up. They couldn’t be the last ones in Beacon Hills and they couldn’t have just let the rift close with Giselle still in it. He had been going through every idea that came into his head, even the craziest ones, because he was desperate to get Giselle back. While he hadn’t completely remembered everything about her, he had grown attached to the idea of her and he was desperate to find her because he believed that if he really was her brother, he should be able to come up with some way to remember. She believed in him, after all. She believed in him to find Canaan, so she had believe in him to find a way to help her. Regardless, Stiles was coming up with nothing and he knew that time was running out and he couldn’t help but feel a nagging sensation in the back of his mind, taunting him and telling him he’d never be able to get his sister back.  
Scott sat in his seat, robotically redialing his mother’s number. He heard the woman’s voice telling him the number was no longer in service, but he wasn’t listening to it. He couldn’t stand to sit in silence and while the squeaking of Stiles’s shoes against the hardwood floor made some noise, it was a noise that screeched with nervousness, anxiety, and hopelessness. He couldn’t help Beacon Hills now, he couldn’t help Giselle, and he couldn’t help his own mother. He felt the weight of the world on his shoulders and there was nothing he could do to remove it.  
Derek sat still and quietly. His head began to hurt as he begged and pleaded himself to remember even just one thing about Giselle. Each time he came up with nothing and he grew increasingly frustrated, which added to the pain on the side of his head. He shut his eyes and tried to visualize what she looked like. He had heard her voice when he dreamt about her and when she got through to them through the radio frequencies and he tried to use that to remember things that she had said to him. Remember how beautiful I think you are. How beautiful I think you are. The sentence sounded too familiar - like he had heard it before the night Giselle was taken.  
Just before Derek lost control of his anger, the Sheriff came bursting through the front door. The six of them stared up at the man who stood before them, catching his breath. “I have a daughter,” he said, surprising them all. “Her name is Giselle Harmony Stilinski. She’s Stiles’s twin sister,” he pointed to his son. “And she’s something special to you,” he pointed to Derek. “I mean, she’s special to all of us…but to you particularly,” he smirked, letting his hand fall to his side again. “I remember,” he said to Scott. “When Stiles was younger, he couldn’t say his first name - not sure why, Mieczyslaw rolls right off the tongue -“  
“Oh my God,” Stiles muttered in embarrassment about his name.  
“So their mother helped Giselle give him the nickname Mischief,” the Sheriff smiled at the memory. “So Stiles went to his mother to try and come up with a nickname to counter the one Giselle had given him. He got so fed up with being called Mischief that he constantly called Giselle, Beneficence,” he chuckled. “He couldn’t even say that, so he shortened it to Benny. Soon enough, Stiles and his mother called Giselle Benny profusely. So much that I almost forgot her name was Giselle.” The memory of Claudia caused Noah’s throat to close up, but he forced it down and thought of a memory that came to mind about Giselle. “I remember, when Stiles first got his jeep - it belonged to their mother - Giselle was so jealous.” Noah and his son chuckled.  
“I remember the first time you gave me the keys to that thing I drove it right into a ditch,” Stiles shook his head at himself, a smirk playing on his lips still.  
“And Giselle screamed out, “see, I should’ve gotten the jeep!””  
“I remember that,” Stiles’s head perked up as the memory came flooding back to him. “We fought for almost a week. She wanted the jeep but she didn’t even have her licence yet, but she didn’t listen. Eventually, I sat her down and we talked about mom and how she felt like she was losing mom even more now that I had the jeep,” his eyes began to pool with tears and he looked down in attempts to conceal them. He missed his mom dearly and he couldn’t fathom losing Giselle too.  
“She always felt things so deeply,” the Sheriff added. “Whether it was happiness, sadness, anger - she felt every bit of it, and she wanted to know that she felt it too. I think that’s why she tried her best to make everyone around her happy. Because she knew how great it felt to be happy,” Noah finished with a shaky breath.  
“You remembered,” Scott observed.  
“How?” Derek asked, remembering how apprehensive the Sheriff had been to even believe him and Lydia in the first place.  
Noah went on to explain how it all started with the bag that Derek had tossed to him. How all he did was go through every piece of paper that was in that stack and sorted them all out and when he was done, the room had restored itself, and bits and pieces came back to him before it was a whirlwind of memories. “And then the strangest thing happened,” Noah whispered.  
“What?” Lydia straightened up in her seat.  
“I thought I saw her,” he whispered.  
“Y-you saw her?” Stiles approached his father.  
“Just for a moment. It was like a…a…”  
“A white light,” his son finished for him.  
“How did you know?”  
“Because I saw the same thing.” Stiles turned to his friends. “That’s what I saw in the room last night - a white light that collapsed in on itself. The white light that Giselle was in.”  
“It’s a rift,” Scott realized.  
“I thought there was only one rift,” Malia shook her head. “And it disappeared.”  
“Remembering her made another rift open.”  
“But the rift closed,” Liam reminded them, remorsefully.  
“But if the Sheriff opened it again by remembering after it closed, that means we can do it too,” Derek replied, feeling a new wave of hope grow deep in his chest. “We just have to remember everything.”  
“We have to tap into our subconsciouses,” Malia decided.  
“We still don’t know how to do that though,” Liam shook his head.  
“I think I know,” Scott stood up from his seat. “When we became the sacrifices to find our parents, we had to go into our subconscious, and we did that with the ice baths.”  
“So we have to do that again?” Stiles confirmed.  
“Not necessarily,” Lydia interjected. “I think I know something better.”  
Lydia took the time to explain that there was a sarcophagus in the Argent bunker that she helped Argent use to try and figure out what Parrish was. They used it to lower his temperature so that his subconscious had taken over. It was a stronger method that Lydia and Stiles wouldn’t be able to withstand, but the werewolves could. Since Lydia and Stiles weren’t able to go into the sarcophagus, she decided they would try hypnosis since it was the safest method for the both of them. They set out for the bunker, deciding that Malia, the Sheriff, and Liam would keep watch for any ghost riders that were lurking around, considering this was where they last saw them. 

Scott, Stiles, Derek, and Lydia all got to the sarcophagus, sealing the door shut and deciding to work as quickly as possible. After sorting through a series of knobs and switches, they were able to turn on the machine. They all glanced to each other hesitantly, but Scott decided to go first to see if this machine was going to be of any use to them. When he stepped in, he felt the effects of the cold temperature immediately. As he groaned out in agony, Stiles and Derek wanted to take him out, but Lydia stopped them. After a few moments of waiting, Scott’s eyes had shifted to crimson red before they faded back to their normal dark brown, telling Stiles, Lydia, and Derek that he was now subject to his subconscious.


End file.
